Gabriella

My love for dogs goes way back, but my desire to learn about and help the dog rescue programs started about 2 ½ years ago.  My American Eskimo lived for 15 years.  When he died, I knew immediately that I had to have another dog.  I looked into the adoption places and knew that was how I wanted to obtain a dog.  My family and I adopted "Charlie", a Tibetan Terrier from Pet Orphans of Southern California.  I continued to follow many of the rescue and shelter websites.

After 5 months went by, my family and I decided that Charlie needed a canine friend. We adopted a Benji-type terrier mix from The Bill Foundation. "Robbie" was about 6 years old and VERY skinny. I knew I had to help him blossom into the filled out, fantastic, devoted dog that he is today.  During the time after the adoption, Robbie developed a seizure disorder. I admit, at first, it was a little frightening, but mainly it was because of my lack of knowledge, not his seizures.  I did a lot of research and as the saying goes, knowledge is power. One thing that helped Robbie was if I held him and talked with him during his seizures, they became a lot milder than before.  He continues to have seizures about every 2 months, but they don't scare me, they just are what they are and we ride through them together.

I still wanted to be more involved in the system.  I started volunteering, helping to walk dogs and socialize them.  I have a friend who got involved with fostering and I decided I wanted to help in that way too.  I love senior dogs and I know that many of them are hard to adopt because of age.  I started looking into fostering and I came across "Gabriella" at The Bill Foundation.  My heart went out to her. I had seen her on the website for some time and knew I needed to step in and help.  She has a seizure disorder and is 7 years old.  I knew that it would be hard to find someone to adopt a dog with a medical condition such as this and since I had learned so much about it from Robbie, I really wanted to foster her if it was needed.  The Bill Foundation was very grateful and I feel so good about helping her.  As I am writing this, she has been our foster for 3 weeks and she is a joy.  Offering to be a long-term foster for her was a wonderful move.  She is in a happy place with two canine friends and a family that loves her despite her medical needs.

Being a foster greatly helps the rescue system.  Placing a dog in a foster home not only socializes the dog, but opens up a space for another dog to be rescued.  It is a very fulfilling volunteer job to take. I admire the work that the rescue organizations do and recommend helping in any way that you can!

Patsy Garbett

Gabriella (far left) and her foster family