After 1.5 week with Chase, his second foster family decided to tell us that they were going on a week-long family vacation that night, despite Chase’s neuter surgery that was supposed to take place a couple of days later. We had only a few hours to find him a place to stay as our policies the foster would not be able to take Chase out of town, for safety reasons. It was also our policy for the foster family to let us know at least 2 weeks in advance of any vacation plans, which was clearly not happening. Due to the last-minute notification, we were not able to book a reservation at our partner boarding facility for that night, so Chase stayed in my house for the night. As we were able to keep him for only 1 night (our place isn’t big enough for a third dog), the next day we put him in our partner boarding facility 30 minutes away. After we reminded the foster family of our out-of-town/vacation policy, we wanted to give the foster a second chance when they got back from vacation. However, they decided giving us a 2-week notice of any vacation was too much of a hassle for them and they decided to give up Chase.
We have our out-of-town/vacation policy for a reason: to prevent this kind of chaos. If you are thinking of fostering/adopting, please follow the organization’s policies and procedures as they exist for a very good reason; Otherwise it is the dog that suffers. Changing places too many times like in Chase’s situation is too stressful for a dog as it has to continue to adjust to new living environments.