Navigating the Heartwarming World of Animal Rescue and Fostering: Stories and Insights from Foster Tales Rescue

Hello, my friends and fellow animal lovers, welcome to another episode of the story of my pet podcast. I am your host, as always, julie Marty Pearson, and I'm happy to have you joining us for yet another story of animal adventures in rescue, fostering and adoption. Today, I have two guests joining me who are people from my own local community who I have connected with through my local shelter, through fostering and learning more about their rescue, as well as through social media. I will definitely have all the links for you guys to follow them in the show notes and their rescue, which is called Fostered Tales Rescue, and we talk a lot about all of the varied experience that they have with fostering and rescue and bringing new animals into their families. We will discuss all things that you're thinking about fostering and how you can get started, ways you can help outside of fostering and adoption, including supporting rescues with donation, with your time as a volunteer, as well as helping to network animals on social media, which is a very important piece to helping rescues and shelters find adopters for their animals. So I hope you enjoy this conversation. You're also going to hear some really great dog training tips along the way. I just appreciate having you all here. Please make sure, if you haven't already, to hit, subscribe or follow on whatever platform you are listening to the podcast. That way, you will not miss any new episodes coming out. And now here is the new episode. Okay, my friends and fellow animal lovers, I am happy to have my new guests on this episode of the story of my pet. I'm welcoming Courtney and Aaron Clareko. Thank you both for being here. Thanks for having us.

Thank you for having us.

Tell us a little bit about what you do and how animals are a part of your life.

My name is Courtney Clareko and I am an animal lover. I have now basically made animals my whole life. I've been obsessed with animals since I was a little girl and growing up, they were always just a huge central focus for me and I volunteered with a lot of different rescue organizations and I always wanted to start my own, but it would be when I was older. But here I am. I quit my day job and I'm running foster tails now. I am super happy to be doing that and it's a lot of fun. We're saving lives.

Hello, my name is Aaron Clareko and I'm Courtney's dad. I've always had dogs and it was Courtney that got me into or really our whole family into animal rescue. And she was a teenager she met someone who was involved with a greyhound rescue down in La Habra and she got us involved with fostering greyhounds and I think over the years that we did that, I think we must have fostered about 60 greyhounds 100, dad. Oh, 100 greyhounds Holy smokes. We got 100 greyhounds over the years and we really got into the right way, the right protocols, the right ways to foster dogs, to bring dogs into our home. So we got pretty good at it. We got so good at it that my wife, kathy Courtney's mom, became the foster coordinator, which was a really important position for the greyhound rescue and what was the name of the greyhound rescue?

we were involved with Bast Friends Greyhound adoption.

Yep, really great rescue and we learned so much from Joyce McRory who runs that rescue.

My idol.

And in any case, courtney's mom became the foster coordinator and so she would help new fosters receive their dogs and she would provide she would like to help desks whenever they had problems. She would help people troubleshoot their problems and give them advice for how to handle all kinds of different problems with the fosters. So we got so good at this over the years and we also did a lot of just regular shelter dogs too.

Shelter dogs. We also did a lot of cats.

Oh, my goodness, we have a. Yeah, we read through a lot of cats as well, so we really enjoyed that, and I am actually training to become a professional dog trainer right now so that when I retire, I would like to help other people train their dogs. I've always done easy basic training with my dogs and then I wound up, through a series of circumstances, getting a Dutch Shepherd, which is one of the more challenging dogs, I think, to train. He's probably not the right place to start, but he was so well bred, such a good dog, such a smart dog and so devoted to me that, despite the fact that I'm really a terrible dog trainer right now, I'm working on getting better. Shelter has just turned out to be a great dog, so I've enrolled in animal behavior college and I'm going through their comprehensive program on becoming a dog trainer. I'm really looking forward to helping more families receive their dogs, their adopted dogs from the shelter and our fosters that are taking care of our shelter dogs. I'd like to be able to provide good training support to them and help families really be more successful with their dogs.

I think training is such an important piece and so many people adopt and try to do it themselves when they really and not all dogs need specialized training. But there's so many resources available. People need to take advantage of them and it's going to be able to make them a more successful for family, for sure. 100%.

Absolutely yeah.

And what we've found success with is my dad actually mentors our adopters and as a point of contact for our adopters, as he's a trainer in training, he's our trainer in training, right, and so he talks to all of our adopters or most of our adopters and helps them through issues and helps them sustain that commitment that they've made to that dog. When people adopt a dog, they need to take it more seriously and see it as a commitment and say, hey, I'm gonna get you to where you need to be completely.

And it also helps, I think, for people to be made familiar with some of the patterns of dog learning. When a dog comes out of a shelter and into a home, that's a lot of changes that the dog needs to get used to all at once, and one of the most common problems that our fosters and our adopters have had, even in the past when we work with the Greyhounds, is separation anxiety. The dog sees that the person is leaving Some dogs. They're okay with it, but we found that many dogs, especially new dogs, get anxious and they become afraid and their reaction to the separation is not a desired behavior. And one of the simplest tricks in dog training really is habituation, and in this case the habituation would be if the dog becomes anxious and reacts when you grab your car keys and walk out the front door, then you need to do that 30 times in a row and you need to do that day after day and you need to leave for varying periods of time. You need to leave for three minutes and five minutes and 10 minutes, and you need to do it all throughout the day. It's a lot of trouble, but what you're trying to do is you're trying to make the event happen so many times that the dog begins to realize there's no consequence. To me, this is something that happens all the time and the dog will eventually get used to it. Really, the best way to handle it?

I think that's really important because I definitely saw it a lot when I did off-site adoption events and we'd worked so hard to get a dog out and then a few days later, or even a week later, they'd come back and they would have destroyed something while they were out or they would have dug in the backyard or something that it's like you can't expect a dog to understand. They're in another, new environment and now you're leaving them and they don't know what that means and they've been left before. Obviously, that's how they ended up in the shelter. I think separation anxiety is a big issue, especially for shelter and rescue dogs.

It is, as is setting up the environment for your dog to be successful. For example, if a family needs to be warned that any small object that dog may regard as a potential chew toy, yeah, you actually do have to put your remote control and your hair barrette, so your comb or whatever it is, you've got to set it out of the dog's reach. If you don't want the dog to chew on your shoes, put your shoes in your closet, close the door. If you set the environment up so that the dog can't fit, then the dog's not going to make a mistake, and you don't want to break too hard on people, but if your dog makes a mistake, it's really not on the dog, it's on you, and this is a behavior that you haven't trained out. This is a behavior that you haven't addressed and you need to properly address it.

Same thing with dogs, especially young dogs that are puppies or even just under a year. They're going to chew. There's reasons they're chewing and so you've got to give them something appropriate to chew on or they're going to find whatever is available to them. I think that's really important that for fostering and for adoption, that a big part I think of the disconnect, especially with shelters because they're so busy and they're just trying to get dogs out is the family's not being set up for success, and if they don't have any experience with dogs or they've never had a dog, they need to train. I'd love for you guys to talk a little bit about how you set up fosters now and how you guys were setting yourself up for success being foster parents.

I was in my teen years that I learned of retired racing grayhounds and I got linked up with someone in town who was one of the placement reps and I got to adopt one at a young age. My parents had to technically adopt it and then the head of the rescue sent out an email to Oliver Reedford adopters saying I need more fosters. And so I went to my parents and I was like hey, my grayhound we just got. Do you want to get a new one? And after much discussion, it didn't take much they said yes, and so the grayhound rescue was a magical experience because they had this whole operation set up. They worked hard to build a relationship with the track at Mexico and not be pro or against racing, just neutral. Hey, we're just here for the dogs, that's all it was. And so, because of this, the track actually allowed them to build what was called the play yard on the track property, and this play yard is where the dogs anyone, no questions asked, could walk a dog up to this play yard and leave it and know that the rescue was going to come pick it up. It saved a lot of dogs from getting hurt or killed, and they worked hard to educate and build relationships with the staff at the track and teach them things. And these staff members grew to love the dogs and I'm not saying I'm pro racing because I'm not and I'm actually against it myself, but the organization itself stayed neutral and that was a really key operational piece to their mission. And anyways, they drive back up to La Habra Heights, California, in this beautiful hilly neighborhood where Joyce had this huge setup on a personal property where the dogs would, one by one, be taken out of the trailer and volunteers.

Air condition trailer An air condition trailer.

By the way, yeah, they would be given to a handler for the day. So if someone could volunteer to be a handler for the day, we had to drive two and a half hours to get to this event and pick up the dog, and so you'd handle the dog all day. You'd go down to the corral, the dog would have some time to relax and unwind and then, one by one, as you were called up, you would get taken to the dog washing station so all the dogs would wash, given flea and tick medication. Then they would go over to a tent where Joyce had hired a vet tech to come out and pull blood so they could send off blood at a reasonable rate to a laboratory and get all their blood work done. And then they would get their nails trimmed and their ears cleaned and they'd get their picture taken and then they'd go home to a foster. So got our first dog fast forward. We did this 100 times and we learned a lot about fostering. We learned a lot of ways to manage dogs and one of the key elements is that you stay committed as a foster or a doctor they. You stay committed to the mission and you never give up on that dog and guaranteed there's a solution to the problem. So that's how I approach setting up. My risk, and that's how I approach onboarding dogs is I try to mimic what I saw- and then I want to talk about where does a new foster family start?

They bring home their dog and what is the first thing that they do and what we would always instruct our new foster families to do is tether the dog around your waist and make the dog walk around the house with you. You don't necessarily have to tether the dog to your waist, but when the dog first comes in the house he's not loose, he's not free to explore wherever he wants. You're going to have that dog on leash and you'll take that dog around to every room in the house and introduce the dog to what's going on, and the dog really might not get to be free off leash indoors, maybe even that first night, until they get calm down and understanding what's happening. If there is another dog in the home and you're bringing in a foster dog, the two dogs should probably meet on a walk. They should probably meet in neutral territory and have the dogs walk for a little bit and then walk into the front yard or the backyard so that they can get to know each other, to show a dog their proper role in the family, not necessarily to establish dominance or anything. A lot of that stuff has been debunked, but nonetheless there is a hierarchy in a dog pack and the best way for a family to show the dog a new dog its place is to first of all eat before the dog eats. You're not going to free feed a dog. You're going to feed him, I think, just one meal a day and make sure the dog sees you eating before the dog gets to eat. That is one sign of you having a higher position in the pack and the dog has to wait for you. Don't allow a dog to own and resource protect bones or toys. Pick the toys up and put them away and bring the toys out when it's time for the dogs to play with them. You can use the toys as a reward. You can use the reward. Use the toys as an alternate behavior to chewing on something you're not supposed to chew on, and be sure you teach the dog that a toy can also be taken away. But don't make it a negative experience. Bring the dog a better toy and remove the toy from the dog. Give the dog the better toy and then hand the other dog in the room the toy that you just took away from the first dog, and that will feeds the dog, but they don't own the toy and they don't get to. They don't get to dog it. Walk the dog frequently. Some families even need to be told to let the dog out every half an hour until the dog gets used to going potty in the yard. It can take a while for the dog to be very nervous when you first bring it home. Sometimes it might take a couple of days. They just get nervous and won't do it. But you have to keep trying and keep trying so that the dog has success with doing their business outside and then obviously you'll offer a lot of praise and excitement around that time. Try to build the positive reinforcement around the desire action which is pooping out the yard. So it's really basic stuff like that.

Those first three days especially are really important that you're setting those boundaries and you're letting them know what to do and what not to do and you're praising them when they're doing it. You're not punishing them to do something wrong, because they've just gotten there. They're not gonna know what's supposed to happen and a lot of times, with dogs from shelters and rescues, we have no idea what their experience was before we got them. So we have to set the stage and set the boundaries for them, and those first three days, I think, are just so important, but over time you just have to keep reinforcing it.

That's real, you really do and you really don't wanna start. You mentioned you do not wanna start on punishment at first, because you're more likely to make the dog fearful. And once you've made the dog fearful of something, then you're beginning perhaps an even worse behavior.

So, really, all those principles that we just covered are how we onboard dogs and how we handle bringing new dogs into the house, and that's how we instruct both not just ourselves, but also our new fosters and our adopters, because the same stuff applies to adopters as well, because sometimes, even though they're coming from a home environment transferring to another home environment, it can still be shocking to them.

Yeah still unknown.

That's how we find success with fostering is just those call and sense principles.

Just basic things I've seen a couple videos of you, courtney, on social media with when you brought in a new dog and you have them tethered to you as you're doing things. I think that's something I hadn't heard of before seeing you do it and I think that's such a great thing because they feel safe, maybe next to you, but you're still keeping them a part of what's going on.

They're looking to me for direction. They know that I'm in charge and, just like my dad said, it's not a dominance thing. I'm not standing over the dog telling it what to do. I'm just going about my normal routine so they can see what it's like, and sometimes this encourages them to be a little bit of a shadow dog, but I don't mind them doing that. It's checking out what's going on in the house and I want them to know that tethered to the leash tells them that they can't be running around like crazy dog. They can't be scouring off into the corner and hiding. They have to be out here in the open. They have to be calm. So I'm going to give corrections. And you don't let them have WWE wrestling matches all over your living room. There's manners you need to have, and so we started stealing those manners and we work on the dogs being quiet because we live in a residential area so the dogs can't be barking. My dogs are quieter than most of the dogs on my block. I tell the dog as I'm walking up to my house. I tell them hey, this is a special place, can't mess it up. You've got to behave. And I really believe in that little talk that I give them because it seems to work, and so my approach is more free, slow, creative.

My dad's is technical and we just figure it out Sounds like it's a good balance for one thing, but also what you mentioned about because I have it a lot in my neighborhood are dogs that are outside and they're just barking. And I think so many times when people hear that or have that as a neighbor or have an experience like that, people jump to blame the dog. But it's not the dog's fault. The dog is doing that because they've been left outside. They're not getting any attention, they don't have what they need, they haven't been set boundaries like you guys are talking about, and I think that's such a stereotype of shelter dogs. They must be there because something's wrong with them.

Yeah, and I'm showing the world that. Number one you can have big dogs in a small house. Number two you can have dogs from a shelter with unknown paths, who might have had some sort of behavioral problem, but I really blame the first one who gave them up along the way or bought them or whatever. I don't think it's the animal's fault. They're just existing. And I come from trauma. I had some traumatic experiences in my 20s and so I relate to them in that factor. I've made mistakes and I still make mistakes. When I see these dogs, I just relate to them so much and I want to give them that second chance. And more often than not they show me actually every single time they show me that they're capable of being great dogs with the right love and support or boundaries and all that Absolutely. The other thing is dogs escaping the yard. That's a symptom of being left outside. By the way, right, a dog that's part of the family and who goes inside with you and all that, is less likely to run away.

Yeah, I heard that so many times in the shelter, especially with Huskies and German shepherds, that they would jump the fence, they would leave or they'd get out. And so there's a reason they're fleeing because they're not getting what they need. They're not bad dogs, they're looking for attention or whatever it may be, and all the Huskies you know, I've rescued a lot of Huskies.

You've seen it? Yep, I don't have any escape artists None of them and my yard is barricaded, by the way, so it's hard to get out, but even still, no one prized to leave. We don't have a problem.

I think another good idea too, to bond a new dog to you or to your family and I picked this up from the trainer that I got Riker from is feed him from your hands, feed him dinner from your hands for the first few weeks. I actually went several months where every single thing that Riker ate came from my hands. I wanted Riker to understand that everything wonderful came from me. I never chased Riker. It's critical to never play a game where you chase a dog. You must always play a game where the dog chases you. You always want to teach the dog to run after you, and I would do that with Riker. I would play hide and go seek with him. I would have my wife hold him across the yard and then I would give him the come to you. I would issue the command come or use the arm motion that I trained him on, and she would release him and he'd run across the yard and he'd get a little bit of hot dog for doing that. So it really drove home that he needs to return to me and so, consequently, I've got a dog who I can drop a leash on a neighborhood walk. I can let him go in the back country. He's never very far from me, he's always checking in with me and he'll always come back to me when I call. I think my biggest challenge is going to be talking to the people, convincing the people that training a dog is it's not black magic, it's not mysterious. There's really well-known simple things you can do to have a better-behaved dog.

It's fun and it's rewarding. It sounds like we're being super technical, but it's a fun, rewarding experience 100%.

So if someone, listening to this episode, has thought about fostering, knows how important it is, but they're not sure what they have to do, how they have to be prepared or not, what would you say to them?

So I would say first, research who you want to foster through, because who you're fostering through will determine what kind of experience you have first of all, and so you want to make sure you're with a reputable rescue or a shelter that is going to assume responsibility of the dog in the event that you can't continue doing this. It needs to be known that it's the shelter or rescued dog. And the other thing you want to look at is how do they get their dogs adopted? Who do they want to adopt to? Because you're going to end up keeping that dog if you don't have the same standards as that shelter or rescue and finding homes. And so, in order to not be a foster failure, you want to work with an organization that really bets their homes and gets the type of home that's similar to your standards and standard of living and your idea of what is needed for a dog to thrive and be happy, because I guarantee you're not going to let that dog go, and then you're going to give up on fostering and it didn't work right. Finding a good rescue or shelter is number one, and then just reach out to them, and that's another test that you can run on a shelter or rescue is how responsive are they If you reach out to them with some questions about how their foster program works, because everyone's works a little differently and they don't. If you reach out to a couple of shelters and rescues and they don't get back to you in a decent amount of time, then that might be a sign that they're not going to adopt the dog out or be responsible in talking to adopters or you when there's a problem. And so you want to reach out and get comfortable with the organization and then just follow their process and look for resources. It's not hard to learn how to train dogs. Of course want to encourage people to come foster with us at FosterTeal because this level of love and care and thought goes into our foster program. But just get involved, jump in and have a commitment that you're just not going to keep the first dog that walks through your door. And this is an experience to get to know lots of dogs. There's nothing more magical on this earth getting to know a lot of dogs. It's a fun ride.

It really is. I think you've made a couple of good points. One you're not signing up in any way, in any shape or form, that you have to keep the dog or cat or whoever you're fostering. A lot of people feel like, no, I have to keep them. No, that's not a requirement. But what you talked about in terms of responsiveness I think is important because ultimately, whoever you're fostering for, they are supporting you to do that, and most rescues and shelters pay for food, pay for healthcare and all of that. But if they're not responsive to you and there is an emergency or the animal gets sick and you don't know what to do, you want to make sure you're with someone that you know is going to respond to you quickly and help you in that situation. Exactly, and are you?

going to get stuck with that dog. How responsive are they to adopters? Because I can tell you I know of rescues and shelters that let emails and texts and phone calls go unanswered and so you could have a potential adopter on the line who never gets a response and then that dog sits in foster care for another three months. If you don't want to end up keeping that dog, you need to do a little bit of research, because I've also heard her horror stories where people have gone and worked with rescues that have abandoned the dogs with them, so they had to adopt the dogs because of that. So there's just a lot of trust that goes into it. Right, and making sure you have the same standards as their adoption standards is so important to.

And ask lots of questions. There's no such thing as a stupid question. There should be no such thing as a stupid question when you're dealing with a rescue in terms of how, what do we do if this happens? What do we do if that happens? And you might be able to tell a lot by their willingness or ability to answer those questions.

I think that's really important. People shouldn't be afraid to ask questions or say, well, that doesn't work for me, or whatever it may be, but finding the right rescuer or shelter, because then anything you need, they're going to be there to support them Exactly. So, let's say, someone's listening. They've been listening to my episodes about how overcrowded our shelters are, what crisis we're in, especially here in Curtin County in California and other areas of the US. They can't on adopt, they can't foster right now because of their home or maybe their current pets of their own, but they want to do something to help. What are the things that you would encourage them to do to help rescues like yours? To help get the dogs out of shelters into fosters and adopted.

I think the number one need is resources. If you can't foster or adopt, resources are needed and the best way to help is to find a reputable rescue or shelter to donate funds to or donate items on a wish list. I can tell you, by running a rescue donations are rare We'll fundraise for a particular dog and we get a flood of donations and for that one dog, but outside of that I get 25 bucks here and there. And so if you're listening and you can give, please give, but if not, volunteer. There's so many roles that you can do today to get involved, and whether it's walking dogs or networking dogs or cleaning kennel. I'd love to point to Curtin County Streets of Bakersfield. I know even some people from out of town have come in for that program and taken a dog out of the shelter for the day and helped get pictures and video. So all that's great and it's all very much needed. But the last thing I want to say about this real fast is that if you're listening and you can't do anything and you're feeling like man, I can't volunteer, I can't donate. What do I do? Find a rescue or a network or online that is networking dog and share their content, or it's a huge piece to our success and to rescue, is having people share and comment on our content. That gets it seen in the algorithm more and that gets the word out to other people who might be able to do things you can't do. I am really big on this, julie. I got to tell you the middle class is hurting right now and when we ask for funds and we ask for help, I realized that most people are encumbered by out of control cost of living fees, out of control grocery costs and fuel costs and everything. Most people have to work two jobs. So if you don't have money, you don't have time. I get it, I hear you and I understand you. Just share and comment. That can help save a dog's life.

People don't realize that just by liking, just by commenting, like you said so many of the social media platforms, it feeds into the algorithm More people that stop the scroll and listen to a video, who like a post, who share it, who put it in their stories, whatever it may be, it impacts it and it gets out to more and more eyes that wouldn't normally see it. I saw this recently from a volunteer from our county shelter. I'm a huge Bravo Housewives fan, I will admit it, and one of the real Housewives of Orange County, who has hundreds of thousands of followers, had reposted a video of that. Volunteers from our county shelter, so it was getting seen at a level that we can't do. But that only happens if people continue to share and like and keep the movement going.

I'd always been rescuing animals and then I got involved with rescue organizations pretty heavily. I was sat on some boards of different nonprofits. But in 2018, I became a victim of domestic violence and I had some pretty bad head injuries from that experience and so I really lost myself and I had to spend a lot of time recovering from that experience. But I definitely lost touch with the animal rescue world. But in 2018, that's around the time that our county shelter came out and said that there was a five year plan for no kill. You can imagine, with everything going on in my life injuries that I was trying to heal from I didn't have a lot of bandwidth to really process things. I actually got my master's degree in 2016 and studied the companion over population crisis here in Kern County and examined different ways to solve it. When I heard that Kern was going no kill, I, like so many other people in my hometown of Baker's Hill, heard just the no kill word and thought, oh God, thank God. And, believe it or not, I became one of those Baker's Hill people that thought everything was going okay at the county shelter, and the county shelter is where my heart was always based, because that's the shelter that I'd always been involved with when I was younger. I get into my career. I finished my education, I got out of that abuse of marriage and I started to just go see on my career. I became a union president and I volunteered that way and that was really intense and I worked for a large government agency here in town and it was interesting and it's last year, in 2022, I was asked to transport a dog some red pressed shelter to the Baker's Hill City shelter to get it on a rescue bus to go to Washington to be adopted. And I said, oh my gosh, yes, absolutely. And so I did this trip and I got to Baker's Hill City shelter with the dog and I met Carrie and Carrie is one of the most amazing volunteers at the Kern County Animal Shelter. She just man, she just reminded me so much of all my rescue work and what was important to me. She was a foster, she was a volunteer, she just had that passion for animals and she made it okay to be that passionate about animals. And so, as we're sitting there talking and I'm just getting flooded with all these memories of animal rescue, an odd looking couple approached the door to the Baker's Hill City shelter that happened to be closed at the time, with a dog in their arm but appeared to have some blood on it, and so, as they trudged back to their car, obviously not getting the help that they were seeking, I stopped them and I said, hey, what's going on? And these people just I don't know what was going on in their life. I'm not going to judge them, but they did not have their things together, let me just put it that way. And they're holding this dog with a whole cut in its throat, and they told me that the dog had wandered into their house however true that might be, and they didn't know what to do. And I said put the dog in my car. They're just instantly rescue. Courtney kicked in. I said put the dog in my car. What are you gonna do? Put the dog in my car. So they put the dog in my car and they left and I went up to Kerry. I didn't know what to do. Kerry said the county shelters open. Go to the county shelters. So I went to the county shelter immediately On the way there I got a better look at her throat and it was cut into her trachea. So she's actually fuddling out of her throat. She's just a puppy. And so I get to the front counter and start pleading my case and telling them what happened and I get rejected. The person didn't hear that the dog was injured because their mandate had taken an injured dog. And so a supervisor overheard because I was starting to get emotional and so they sat me down and I told them what happened and they looked at the dog and they rushed the dog over to DCA and they took the dog in as one of their county dogs and they said listen, whatever it takes to save the dog, there's a woman who will donate funds. If we can donate funds, I will foster the dog whatever it takes. Just know that this dog has a teen rooting for it. And they heard me. And so then I had to wait. I called the vet hospital there. No one could tell me anything because it was the county sheltered's dog, and so I had to wait three days and finally a supervisor called me to tell me that she had died. Her trachea collapsed and she didn't make it. And I was just so emotional, I was bawling on the phone and I said I was willing to take one medical foster. So if you ever get another medical foster in. Put me on the list, I'll take the dog in, of course, me not knowing much at the time coming out of his head in three. Of course they already have a medical dog, of course they do. And she said we have one now. And I said what she said she's a Husky. And I was like okay. And so she told me that this dog had been attacked by another dog on the street. Her and her brother were both attacked. Her brother didn't make it and she happened to be kenneled right next to the dog at the animal hospital that I brought it. They happened to be right next to each other so they knew each other and so I made the appointment to go pick up the dog. I just I couldn't believe the story. She had a broken jaw. She wasn't bleeding. I was gonna have to force feed her, give her antibiotic injections, all this stuff. She was really sick. Bring her to my house, this skinny, ratty looking Husky. And then her deuser and man. This dog just stole our hearts away. She just was the most gentle dog, the sweetest dog. We could not bear to let her go anywhere else and this is why I talked about what I talked about earlier. I love the County shelter, and I think it's an important facility of government that we need. But they're overrun, they can't do a lot and there's laws in place. What forced them to adopt a dog to anyone who walks in the door, who has a driver's license and a pulse, and I couldn't stand to think of her being left outside or being thrown away again. And so one night my husband said he looked at me and then looked at Straza. What we need her? And he said, straza, do you wanna live with us? And I just started bawling and so she became ours, and I also found myself wanting to save a lot more dogs than what I could take on myself, and so I thought it's finally time to start Foster Tales and Foster Tales was a name, by the way, that my dad and I had come up with about 10 years prior, when we were fostering all the time. We just didn't know what to do with it. And so I started the process of starting my nonprofit, and it started occurring to me that all of a sudden, the HR work that I'm doing for this government agency in town it wasn't fulfilling. The union work was fulfilling, but it wasn't sustainable and I made the tough decision to start exiting that part of my life and deciding to dedicate my life to the dogs, and at this point I don't have kids. I don't know if I'm going to be able to have kids because the dogs and I'm fine with that. I think it's why I'm here. I think it's seriously why I'm here.

No, I think that's a powerful story. I appreciate you being open and sharing all of it. One thing I've learned myself just having since starting this podcast is there are so many more people like us that, for whatever reason, their life has become dedicated to the animals, to saving them, to caring for them, to finding more people to help. It's not easy.

I'm scared, I'm constantly terrified. I don't enjoy my life much right now, but it's for the dogs and I love it. I wouldn't have it any other way and, by the way, you really inspired me. When I was getting started earlier, I saw what you were doing and I detected that you were doing what I wanted to do, which is dedicate my life to the animals and not be ashamed of it, and so I just want to thank you for that.

Courtney, why don't you share with Julie our tradition in this family when we adopt a dog, the clerico family tradition when we adopt a new dog or a cat, or any animal for that matter?

It's to give them our last name. Our last name means a lot. I've kept it even in my married life, my now happily married life. But our last name means a lot to us.

It does, and even with animals that we have had for and we had taken medical animals before, animals that we have had for a short time we are making it absolutely certain it's important to us that we adopt them.

Yeah.

And that they get to have our last name, even if we know that the dog may not live or the animal may not live long. We've had those circumstances and it just makes me feel good Because finally welcome that dog to a family and make sure that dog is part of the family. Yeah, once, and our way of doing that is giving them our last name.

Yeah, once we know a dog or a cat's not going to make it, he's in our care, we make a point to go a few of them and hold them and tell them that they're part of the clerico family and say their name with our last name. We look that dog or cat in the eyes and we tell them that they are a clerico and through and they have been adopted and we love them. And we tell them to go meet up with Peter, my original gray held. We tell them to find Sid the kitty, one of my cats that I thought when I was in second grade. We tell them to find Cree, one of Peter's descendants, that I rescued about 10 years later from the track.

They'll be waiting for us at the rainbow bridge.

Waiting for us at the rainbow bridge.

It's so funny Hearing you guys talk about the flashes to all of my pets, and the first foster kitten I ever had didn't make it. He crashed. He had a fading kitten syndrome and I'd never had any. I'd bottle fed babies that we'd kept and everything, and it was really hard for me but my husband made sure that we buried him in our backyard so he stayed here. This was now his home. Probably would have been if he had made it as well. You get so attached to those medical babies. Let me tell you, yeah, so true.

My favorite, one of my favorite adopted animals was we named her BL Kitty. She had been horribly abused Somebody had actually broken one of her front legs and the rescuer that brought her to us saw the person toss BL Kitty from their window on a highway. And they stopped and found this poor, scruffy kitten. And BL was wild as could be, definitely a feral cat. And I made the best relationship with BL Kitty. We always told her that her name was it was Brenda Lim Kitty, because we didn't want her to be defined by her injury. But BL Kitty, she was the best kitty and we just we were so close and she never stopped being serile, but yet she would. Let me pick her up and pet her.

It's an important thing for people to realize that rescue and fostering and all of this isn't easy and sometimes we see the worst of the worst in terms of what humans can do to animals. But when it comes to that animal and the love and the connection that you make with them, all the negative, all the bad just goes away. It's those memories, it's those experiences that really are why the people in rescue and shelters and all of us do this, and that's what we. And it's so funny because with my kitten being because it didn't make, it took me a week before I could take his carrier back to the shelter. I just couldn't do it. And the day I walked in with it to give it back, the foster coordinator said I was just going to call you, we just got six bottle babies and we need someone to take them. Wow. And so I brought him home and then they all became big, healthy kittens. Five of them got adopted and one became my first official foster male.

You didn't give up.

You didn't give up Honestly it hadn't been for beings, in that experience of realizing how fragile they are and how much help they need, I probably wouldn't have said yes, but they I think it's something we, all of us pet parents say the right, the animals that are meant to find us and for whatever purpose they have in our life, whether they become a part of our family or not. And I know one thing I love, courtney, about following you guys and looking at your videos is I was working in the shelters for a while and so I knew the dogs, and whenever I see Shai Shaiyoti, as she was known, in the shelter in your home just living her best life, I would pass her in that corner candle dozens of times in a day when I was getting dogs in and out.

Breaks my heart to think of her there. She did so badly there.

She did. She just was literally screaming out for someone to give her the love she wanted, and so getting to see her in your home. It's like those are the connections we make. Look at her, she didn't get left there, she didn't have to die there in that shelter, she went on somewhere. And I think that's what people don't realize. If you follow along and you track these stories, no matter how bad it looks and no matter how awful some of the situations are, you'll see the light, you'll see the reason. It'll give you that motivation to keep doing it.

Julie, that's just beautiful and that's really what I'd try to capture at Bobford Nails. I think that's why people connect with our content so well is that I really try to tell the story. I don't just tell the heartbreaking one, I tell the happy one and I try to show the dog's journey from shelter to adoption and even past adoption, what their forever home looks like, what their forever life looks like. And that's what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to spread awareness about this very important will show you by telling story, and so far it seems to be resonating with part of you folks.

How many dogs have you placed?

I don't know how many I've placed. I just keep account of how many I've pulled through the shelter and rescued. I keep a notepad of adopted currently and foster transferred to other rescues. We just hit 64 today, wow. That's amazing we have.

we only got involved in this late winter of this year, but as a rescue you've just started and that's a huge impact. Even just one makes it worth it. But when you can have a system in place to save one after another and I think what you said, too, is it's not all about you and getting to claim them. If you have a dog, that's going to fit better somewhere else when the rescues spawn together for transport, for getting into other areas, that's a huge part of it, as long as a rescue meets my standards.

It's all work with them and I've been burned before and that's a lot of people know I've been burned but for the most part I've found some really great rescues that I love working with and I love when I get to take a dog from a shelter, make it healthy, get it all groomed, beautiful and send it off to a rescue that can work on the adoption piece of it, Because I don't need to share all the glory. I really don't. I don't need to pinch them all over it. It's not about owning these dogs. These dogs are sentient beings, they're not property.

And they all deserve a loving home, wherever that ends up being. And we're so overcrowded in Kern County if that means another city or another state or even another country. Some of our dogs even end up in rescues in Canada. Yep, that's all it's about, and the networking is so crucial. People don't realize how much work goes on behind the scenes to get these dogs and cats saved out of shelters and rescues.

I agree 100%, and I have worked with people all over the state of California. In fact, out of the 64 dogs, only two of them have been adopted in Bakersfield. Most of them are even fostered out of the area, so my goal is to get them out of here.

Yeah, we have too many here. Wherever we can get them to happy, healthy homes is what's important. I just want to thank you, courtney, and you, aaron, for spending this time with me. I think you've given some incredible advice and information for people, it definitely importance of rescue and fostering, as well as some training tips, and just thank you both for everything you have done and everything you continue to do for the dogs of our community. Thank you so much.

Let's say sweet Thank you, Julie, and thank you sir.

You do.

Yes, absolutely, thank you, and thank you. This has been fun. I've really enjoyed this.

Yeah, me too, thank you all so much for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed this conversation that I had with Courtney and Aaron. I hope you enjoyed hearing their experience and the work they're doing with rescue and it's maybe inspired you to get more involved with animal rescue. If you can, please follow them on social media. All the links are in the show notes so that you can follow Foster Tails Rescue and help to support by liking and commenting and sharing their posts as they bring in more dogs from the shelter, finding fosters and adopters for those amazing dogs. As always, I appreciate your feedback. If you guys have any topics or you know someone in rescue, working in shelters or nonprofit organization and you would like to see them featured on the podcast, just follow me on social media Instagram at the story of my pet podcast, or email me at Julie at thestoryofmypetpodcastcom and let me know what topics, what groups, you would like to see featured on upcoming episodes of the podcast. Thank you again, my friends and fellow animal lovers, and I will see you on the next episode. Thank you.