Fostering a Happy Stable Dog

Dog Camp was this past weekend. It was an amazing blast and I will write more about that later. But I wanted to address a topic that camp brought up while I was there. One of the instructors, brought up how she fosters the tough dogs. The reactive, fearful, and aggressive dogs. This is where Dawn and I have a lot in common.
I foster the hard case dogs for NYC Shiba Rescue. The ones that have bit, the ones with food aggression, the reactive ones. I like working with these dogs because I feel like they need a fair chance. They need someone who can get down deep and see if the problems can be figured out. I like being the tough dogs second chance.
What came up in conversation was how our own dogs are so different from the fosters. Not in issues but more in behavior. For the most part, my fosters are better behaved then my own dogs. When looking back at this and talking about it I realized why. Because I run I tight ship at home, especially for my fosters. I also don't let my fosters get away with bad behavior from the start.
To rehabilitate them better, I only ask one thing of them, to be happy, stable dogs. I take all the guess work out of their lives. They have a schedule to depend on. They know when feeding will be, when training will be, and know that they do not have to worry about anything. They simply get to be the dogs they never got to be before. Without unnecessary stresses, they become more confident, stable and calm. They start to listen and look to me for instructions within days and issues melt away. Once they are settled in I can focus on the stimuli that sets off their issues (if I can find any) and desensitize it. Since they are not effected by other stresses their issues fade quickly and they become wonderful companions.
Now off to give Ginger a big hug. She has come so far and I am so proud of her. She will make someone extremely happy someday.