Trust

Ooh. That's a tricky word. Especially when it comes to five month old puppies who have only been in your house for four weeks.

Is he really totally housetrained??

What will he destroy in my absence?

What will he pee on and destroy while I am sleeping?

These are the questions that run thru a foster mom's mind that keep her alert AND while awake, moving at lightening speed through Walmart while shopping for her kids underpants.

I'm pretty sure Jasper is housetrained. Preeeeetty sure. He's not a big chewer but rather a collector. He likes to drag socks around. He doesn't chew them but likes to drag them around.

He is also a mama's boy. And similarly, hates the kennel and being in it when mama goes to work. He's moved the extra large plastic dog kennel that we keep him in perpendicular to where it stood originally AND over about six feet. He's also shredded every type of bedding material that I've put in there. So I've resorted to newspapers. Which he's also shredded. My dining room floor looks like a giant gerbil lives there.

In an effort to A. Stop the crazies when it's kennel time and 2. Keep my floor shred free, I decided to leave puppy out of his kennel while we did some shopping. I figured he would be relatively worn out from our trip to the dog park in the morning so he shouldn't be tooooo destructive, right??

So, I kennelled the big doggies and gave Jasper his treat which he promptly carried into the family room. I slipped out the door and into the car. We left at 1145am and got back about 315p. Made a quick trip to Brookfield Square and then to Delafield Walmart.

Ok, that Walmart didn't have the "right" underpants (this is a tragedy when you are a 12 year old boy, apparently), so off we went to Johnson's Creek. Where, upon pulling into the parking lot, checked my watch, it was 145pm and told the kids that we couldn't fool around too much as we had Jasper Disaster roaming free in the house.

Forty five minutes, four packages of underwear (two packages which were pink and green with days of the week on them), a pair of flip-flops, a pair of aqua sox, a pair of shorts and a t-shirt for me later, we were on our way back to Oconomowoc.

I opened the house door with some trepidation, hoping for the best but expecting the worst. Ok, A. The dog was not to be found, 2. Looked left and there was no mess. Excellent. Looked right and still no mess. There were no messes anywhere. Nothing was chewed. Nothing destroyed. He did hijack one lone sock from the laundry pile and cuddle with it on the front hall rug.

So furever family, while I'm sure it will take you some time to learn to trust this little boy, I can tell you that as far as I'm concerned, he's trustworthy to let roam free.

Yes, I said, Furever Family. You may have all noticed that P. Jasper has a pending behind his little Fluffy Dog name and will probably, sniff, being moving on to his new home this weekend. Thankfully, this family came along when they did because this had potential for my first foster failure.

Trust me on that.