Foster Friend 2 -  Effie

Effie

I only waited two days before the next phone call came through. I was asked to take a little Australian silky terrier cross named Effie. She was 12 years old and her elderly owner had passed away. This situation is very common as you would imagine.She was a funny little thing - looked almost like her mum or dad had been a cattle dog.Quite peculiar actually!

After Barclay however, she was a dream. Quite content to sleep in the laundry at night thank heavens! She and Jill were fine together by which I mean they ignored each other which was quite okay by me. She didn't fret when I left the house though when I was home she liked to follow me around.She had one strange habit - she would watch me in the shower (why I don't know) and when I stepped out, she would rush over and lick my legs!  Quite off putting actually. I would shoo her away but back she would come.I could let her off the leash on the beach and she would always come back. She also related well to my grandchildren Naomi and Aidan and their little dog Misty. So things were going well. 

Misty and Effie

Rather unexpectedly an adoption offer came through. It is often hard to adopt these older dogs. The prospective owner was a professional lady who already had a rescue dog and wanted another as a companion for it as she was away during the day. So she brought her dog around to meet Effie and all went well till the very end when we were all in the kitchen saying goodbye and Effie suddenly went for the other dog in a most aggressive way. I was quite shocked as she had always been so calm! The lady left rather quickly and I thought I would never hear from her again but a few days later she rang and said she would still like to take Effie on trial. This time she would  come on her own. She had arranged for her other dog to spend the night at her parents' place so she and Effie could get to know each other.This seemed too good to be true!  She arrived with a lovely new collar,lead and harness and all was going really well. Effie was doing all the right things and responding beautifully. At the end we were down on the floor putting Effie's harness on when poor old Jill meandered across  to see what was going on. Guess what! Effie attacked Jill and bit her on the nose which drew blood. I lost it and smacked Effie which was not really appropriate but no-one hurts my Jill!  The lady left without Effie (I don't blame her) who wouldn't come near me for a couple of hours (I don't blame her either).

So that was all very disappointing. Did Effie know what I was trying to do? Or is she just very jealous? I kept her for another week and everything was fine again but I didn't feel really easy with the situation. I took her back to another foster carer and said I was happy to take on another one but needed a couple of weeks break.  I notice that she is up on the Four Paws website for adoption. I really hope she finds a loving home soon - but maybe in a one dog family.
I will keep you posted when my next adventure starts.

Cheers
Marilyn - Dog Diva