Our foster and subsequent adoption of Roan started when I saw a post on Facebook appealing for foster homes for rescue terriers. I had been thinking for some time that it would be good for our two year old  wire haired fox terrier Lulu to have a companion, but wasn’t sure if she would feel the same!

After a long family discussion, during which the now grown up kids applied a significant amount of arm-twisting to their father, I filled the fostering form in and started to keep an eye on the Terrier SOS website for dogs arriving from Spain.

As we already had a female terrier we had been advised that a male would most likely be a suitable second dog, but as a couple of months went by it seemed that only female dogs were in need of homes.

In the meantime, Lulu set up her own Twitter account and made friends with a whole group of Terrierables on Twitter. Amongst these doggy tweeters was @RootyFoxWire, a cheeky chap! As a staunch supporter of Terrier SOS, Rooty always posted the photos and information about the desperate dogs in care.

I don’t think we will ever forget the day we saw Rooty’s post featuring a photo of the saddest looking dog we had ever seen. His big eyes looked straight into the camera and appealed for help. I fell in love. I showed the photo to my daughter and she fell in love too. In response to my tweet, Rooty asked “Iz yoo smitten?” I replied ‘trying not to be’, but as much as I tried, I just loved that dog. Rooty (or his mum) encouraged me to fill in those forms again and this time to post them!

After a long phone call with Diana Brusi we agreed that we would foster Roan, with a view to adopting him if it worked out well. We passed our home check and a place in the Animal Express van travelling from Spain was subsequently booked for Roan. No turning back now. Without a foster space in the UK, these dogs simply cannot travel and have no hope of finding safety, comfort and love.

Having spent a nerve wracking day in contact with Diana, our fingers firmly crossed that he would actually be allowed into the UK due to a mistake with his worming tablets, we eventually heard that ‘Dantastic’ Dan from Animal Express had managed to save the day. Roan was on his way!!!

As the big day drew near I started to get very nervous! I hadn’t even met this dog and didn’t know anything about him…how can you know, these dogs have no background.

I had been told that Roan would have nothing when he came, no toys, no bowl, nothing, but it was still so sad that even the collar he was wearing when he arrived had to be given back – he was literally an orphan with absolutely nothing to call his own.

Well, we were expecting Roan to be a quiet, shell-shocked and nervous boy, who would need to be coaxed out of his shell. What we got was a large, over-excited, confident, springy nutter! More like Tigger than a dog!

A walk up to the common with Lulu seemed to go well, but when we got back to the house she was not a happy girl, teeth were bared and there was much growling! She was not impressed by the new arrival one bit! Sensing Lulu’s uncertainty, Roan in turn showed dominant behaviour, barking when she came near and barging her out of the way. It wasn’t exactly going to plan.

As the days went by Roan made himself at home. On the surface he was an outwardly confident dog, but he cried in his sleep, yelped when picked up and barked if you got too close to his face. Looking deep into his eyes you could see that he couldn’t quite believe he was allowed on the sofa or the bed and he wolfed down every meal down as though it was his last.

Lulu, on the other hand, was not happy with his presence in the house. She behaved like a jealous toddler with a new baby, stopped eating, refused to go out into the garden if Roan was, stopped dead when out walking, ate grass, was sick, reverted to chewing things she knew she shouldn’t and ran away in the park, not wanting to come back because Roan was near. The look in her eye accused us of ruining her life and we were heart-broken to see her sink into doggy depression. One look at her sad face had me in tears nearly every day for the first week.

I was beginning to think we would have to give Roan up, even though I knew we as a family already loved him. We didn’t want to give up. Luckily I had fabulous support from Andrea (Rooty’s mum), who stayed up into the early hours giving me advice and support and also from Naomi, who had done our home check. The turning point though was half way through the second week when I phoned Diana and said “I’m struggling – help me please!”  Being able to chat about my concerns for Lulu with others has helped enormously. Roan was being a bit cheeky really and I was made to realize that it was ok to give him firm boundaries if he was going to stay.

Armed with new ideas and supportive suggestions, by the end of the second week we were beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel and I was wondering about why I had been so worried. Roan had become a firm member of our family!

As I write this today it’s nearing the end of week four and we have formally adopted our handsome Spanish boy. I wouldn’t say that Lulu and he are friends yet, but I feel like things are going in the right direction! Roan has learned to ‘sit’ and give his paw for treats. We are working on ‘down’ now, but that’s a bit sketchy still. Armed with hotdogs for treats we let him off his lead and he runs around enthusiastically. The look on his face when he runs back to me at what seems like a hundred miles an hour to get sausage is priceless. He does the same run up before jumping onto my bed at night. When I watch him sleep I can’t help thinking about the bewilderment and confusion he must have felt when his former owners abandoned him. He is still anxious about being left but hopefully in time he will start to believe the promise I have made to him that I love him and I will always come back.

Yes we’ve had the frisson, the stress, the giddy behaviour. We’ve had tears too and no doubt more to come. But these are far outweighed by the smiles and laughter that we have already had with OUR cheeky, springy, one hundred mile an hour dog.

Thanks TerrierSOS – we are privileged to be allowed to look after one of your wonderful dogs!

xxx Debbie and Family xxx