Cara Sue Achterberg - One Hundred Dogs and Counting: One Woman, Ten Thousand Miles, and A Journey into the Heart of Shelters and Rescues

ONE HUNDRED DOGS & COUNTING

Pegasus Books Ltd.

148 W 37th Street, 13th Floor

New York, NY 10018

Copyright 2020 Cara Sue Achterberg

First Pegasus Books cloth edition July 2020

Interior design by Maria Fernandez

Front cover photo Nancy Slattery

Jacket design Studio Gearbox

Author Photo Credit Nancy Slattery

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-64313-412-3

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-64313-413-0

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

www.pegasusbooks.us

For Frankie, the dog of my heart. In the end, I couldnt save you, so I will try to save the others.

Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed.

Thich Nhat Hanh

O ur family has fostered 162 dogs for an all-breed, foster-based rescue that saves dogs from southern shelters, moving them north to be adopted. By the time you read this, that number will probably be over two hundred. We continue to commit to dog after dog, seeing each one through to its eventual forever home and then immediately picking up another. The dogs live with us, as our own dogs, as part of our family. We teach them how to be a family pet, sometimes offering the first indoor accommodations theyve ever experienced. With that comes the fun of house-training, crate-training, and leash-training. But we also teach them about belly rubs and squeaky toys and the comfort of snuggling on the couch to watch football. There have been plenty of moments when Ive laughed myself silly or cried in frustration, swearing off this particular addiction, but mostly I am struck time and again by the capacity of these marvelous four-legged individuals to trust and to forgive. They are always a lesson in love and perhaps a bigger lesson in patience.

Fostering is not for the faint of heart. We love these dogs, and then we let them go so we can love another. Those good-byes used to seem like the hardest part. Now I know better. I have met the dogs still in shelters and dog pounds who never make it on a transport, the ones who dont know safety and yet wait patiently for a home they may never get.

After Another Good Dog: One Family and Fifty Foster Dogs was published, the drumbeat began: Whens the next book? But I hesitated, wondering if there was an audience for endless foster dog stories. Id be the first to say that every foster dog that comes to us brings a whole new experienceboring is not a word I would ever use to describe fosteringbut really just how many times does a reader want to hear about another stuffed animal mauling or counter raid? How many puppies have to be born in my mudroom before readers become like my own children and complain about the smell and the work, completely missing the cuteness?

On the heels of my most difficult foster dog to date, and a few months before the publication of Another Good Dog, I was struck with the realization that the stream of dogs was not abating. If anything, it was growing, and the fostering requests felt more desperate. If fostering was helping, why wasnt that stream slowing at least?

Ive always been a person who would rather look at the cause of an injury than simply put on a Band-Aid. I have no patience for doing the same thing over and over to no effect. and swirled around the endless needs of homeless dogs, I thought for certain we were making a difference. So certain, I wrote a book about it!

And then just before the book came out, I had a mini-crisis, doubting that all the work and dogs and heartbreak were making any difference. Sure, I could see it in the individual lives of the dogs that came through our home and the families that adopted those dogs, but were we making a dent in the larger problem? How was it that the pleas for foster homes to save dogs destined to be euthanized in shelters never slowed, never lessened, no matter how many we rescued?

I needed to see the situation for myself. So, I hijacked my book tour and turned it into a shelter/book tour. What I saw changed the trajectory of my life. I had always thought rescue dog fostering was an interim in my lifefoster some dogs, write about it, the situation improvesthen I go back to my real life writing novels, pulling weeds, hiking in the woods, and worrying about my (now adult) children. Instead, I cant seem to stay with a story long enough to see it through to publication, my gardens have been plowed under, my hiking boots sit idle, and the kids are traipsing all over the globe without the protection of my nonstop nagging. I am too distracted by these dogs and the people who fight for them.

After visiting the shelters, I had to do something. This book is the first something. I was, and still am, convinced that if people knew what was happening in the rural southern shelters, they would not stand for it. They, like me, would be moved, they would get involved, they would help. I cant say it enoughits not that people dont care, its that they dont know.

So let me tell you

NOTE: Throughout this book, you will read the term pit bull. I want to be clear here that there is no such breed as a pit bull. You might as well call them unicorns. Pit bull is an umbrella term for dogs with a muscular build, large head, tiny ears, and hearts of gold. They may or may not have American Staffordshire Terrier or American Bull Dog Terrier or any number of terriers or bulldogs in their heritage. There is so much I could say about the misinformation, biased press, and complete nonsense that surrounds these dogs. They are near and dear to my heart, and I struggled with how to label them in this book. I considered putting the term in quotes, but it became confusing and awkward. So, suffice it to say, that while I use the term pit bull I dont believe in it, and I am fully aware that no such breed exists. I truly hope that someday everyone is lucky enough to know the love of a dog erroneously labeled pit bull.

. And yet I have mucked stalls out daily for years.

. My husbands term.

G ala got out! Brady yelled.

It was a postcard-worthy summer day in south-central Pennsylvania, the kind that almost makes the cold, gray winters worth it. I was at my desk, shades drawn, deep into a dreaded edit of a novel in progress.

My first reaction was fury. My son Brady and his friends had taken over our kitchen, reuniting over Mountain Dew and memories, trading notes about their second year of college. The last time Id seen Gala, our foster dog, she was contentedly hanging out on the Frank bed in the kitchen enjoying their antics.

So what was she doing outside? And why werent all those able-bodied young men out there tracking her down? Their laughter and loud music would have drowned out my questions if thered been time to ask them. Having recently returned from college, Brady hadnt lived with Gala long enough to know that a loose Gala was an all-out emergency.