Album The dogs of backcountrypost.com

[Nanda]

Pretty cool, pretty reasonable price too. I might give it a try for one of my beagle mix, we suspect she has some lab in her but who knows.

 

[Yvonne]

Sage is such a great puppy.

Here is one from the Wild Horse Window Hike

@Nick and Sage

 

[coguy79]

This is my hiking partner when we go out. Her name is Sophie, she's a rescue. Best dog i have ever had.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Nick]

Good lookin' pup @coguy79! Love those pointy ears.

 

[baltocharlie]

Sage is such a great puppy.

Here is one from the Wild Horse Window Hike

@Nick and Sage

I can see Cattle dog, border collie and a little Jackrabbit in 'em.

 

[Nick]

This is our seventh and current foster doggie. Rescued from the shelter on Friday and very happy to be alive. Her name is Tahoe and she is one I really wish we didn't have to give up. She's going to make a great backcountry dog for someone when we take her to the adoption center next week (unless she finds a home sooner ).

 

[steve]

Nick, tell me more about this foster program. I didn't know that was an option. I don't want any more dogs long term, but I wouldn't mind helping a few out temporarily.

 

[Nick]

Fostering is awesome. We absolutely love it and it's so rewarding. We basically just rescue a shelter dog on behalf of Best Friends whenever we're ready for one and then take it to the adoption center a few times per week until it gets adopted. Best Friends has relationships with a lot of the local shelters so it's usually a pretty smooth process. It's because of this relationship that West Valley and Salt Lake County have largely become 'no kill' shelters.

We always try to pick a dog that seems like they'd fit in to our pack and house, then we go meet them and pick them up. The last couple of dogs have been last second rescues from Davis County where the dog was going to get euthanized because they had run out of time (they had plenty of space ). Some shelters only give a dog a few days before they put them down. Note to the world - if you, or anyone you know ever has to give up a dog - DO NOT give them to a kill shelter! That sweet pup in the pics above was only in the shelter for about a week and was on her last day when we saved her. She is a GREAT dog that was turned over to the shelter by her family that had hit some hard times.

Once we have them, it usually takes a couple of days for them to settle in and relax so we might limit how much time they get to spend with the rest of our pack until that happens. Some of the dogs we've had were in the shelter for as long as 6-8 months which can really do a number on their manners/confidence in the short term but they usually spring back pretty quick in a good home. In the event that we pull a dog that just doesn't fit with our pack, Best Friends will take it and find another foster and provide short term boarding until they can arrange a new home. Once a dog is taken into the Best Friends program, it's protected for life.

If you're on the Wasatch Front but not in the SLC area, fostering for Best Friends might not be ideal since the adoption center is in Sugarhouse. There are several other great organizations that need fosters, however. I would get in touch with CAWS (Community Action Welfare Services). They bring all the pets to the weekly adoptions at PetSmart so it would be much more likely that you wouldn't have to drive far to bring the dog in. It also would probably mean that you don't need to bring them in that much since I think they only do adoptions on the weekends. At Best Friends, they are open 5 days per week and they require that we bring the pup in at least 2 of those days. We usually bring them in 4-5 of them.

For people in the SLC area, you can get more info on fostering for Best Friends Utah below:

Best Friends Utah Foster Information
Email: tiffanyd@bestfriends.org
Phone: 801-574-2417

 

[Nick]

Pics of the seven pups we've fostered so far. We started in November 2013.

 

[Nanda]

While I've never fostered, 2 dogs and being single is quite a handful for me, I've lot of respect for guys like Nick. Both my dogs were in foster program(one for quite awhile) and got them from Petsmart's weekend adoption events.

 

[DrNed]

This is our seventh and current foster doggie. Rescued from the shelter on Friday and very happy to be alive. Her name is Tahoe and she is one I really wish we didn't have to give up. She's going to make a great backcountry dog for someone when we take her to the adoption center next week (unless she finds a home sooner ).

View attachment 14917 View attachment 14918

This is one of the posts that is going to get me in trouble ... So it is with trepidation I ask, what is the adoption process?

I ask because years ago we had a lab/rot mix that I and my family loved. He passed away we had a few dogs that stayed with us for several months to years, but I really became turned off because they messed up the house and yard, etc. I became "anti dog."
As a compromise my wife recently got a Brussels Griffin, which isn't more than a little rat, but she's a good dog and the kids are loving her. Combine that with the photos here and my desire to have a hiking buddy I'm "considering" a dog again.

This dog and some of your others that look like they have some Pit Bull Terrier are what I would be interested in. It would also have to be a dog that could get a long with the current canine resident.So what's the scoop on adoption?

 

[steve]

I love hiking with my dog, except for when I want to go to a national park and I can't take him with me, then it's rough. He loves hiking so much that when he sees me grab my hiking boots he follows me around and won't let me out of his sight. I can't sneak away without him giving me those HUGE eyes begging to come with me.

 

[Nick]

This is one of the posts that is going to get me in trouble ... So it is with trepidation I ask, what is the adoption process?

I believe it's just filling out a form, agreeing to a certain standard of care and paying a fee. Unfortunately, it looks like it's going to be even longer before the pup above is adoptable. She has kennel cough and needs to get spayed. We thought she could get spayed tomorrow but the kennel cough is looking to push that back.

But if you like bully breeds, I say you go that way. They're such wonderful dogs and it's so much harder to find a home for them because of the stigma from irresponsible owners. As you can see, nearly half of our fosters have had been a little bully. I wouldn't be surprised if the next one is. I'd be happy to let you know when that happens. Or that dark brown/black one on the top second to right is actually still available for adoption. She got adopted but her new family got shut down by their landlord after the fact, so they had to return her. She's a cute little pup but tons of energy so maybe not the best fit. She's a 'pocket sized' pit. Probably only 35 pounds. Her name is Jaimi.

 

[baltocharlie]

This is one of the posts that is going to get me in trouble ... So it is with trepidation I ask, what is the adoption process?

Seems Nick has no problem adopting. We did(East coast). It might be the breeds we tried to adopt but some of the dogs were mixed. We have a over 1/2 acre fenced yard with a doggie door for the dogs to go in and out as they wish. We both work regular hours but it wasn't good enough for the different agencies we tried to work with. They wanted someone home most of the time. I figured they didn't really want the dogs adopted.

 

[Artemus]

Seems Nick has no problem adopting. We did(East coast).

Balto, it is nothing like that here. It is made way easy here in Utah - for the benefit of the new owners and the benefit of the dogs needing homes. AFAIK and in my experience. Course my wife does most of the work. When we are shopping she interviews each candidate dog with our other dog in attendance. Then once an hour in the parking lot or whatever goes well they come home for a trial period. ALL of the adoption agencies that I know of encourage you to bring them back a day, a week or six months later if it isn't working out. They want the dogs to be in a good home that is beneficial for all. There is no interview process of the new owners and no restrictions that I know of. If there was I would be in their door arguing with them. That is hogwas IMHO. My wife has actively volunteered for several of the rescue agencies and has worked with surrounding state's agencies and she hasn't seen this activity.

People like us and like @Nick and other Utahns have worked hard to retrain the animal control agencies in local governments to promote and encourage adoption. I think all of our goal, and I believe our agency's mostly agree, is to find a loving and considerate home for these animals that have been abandoned and some even mistreated.

 

[baltocharlie]

@langutah lucky you. Our process completely turned off my wife to rescue dogs. The county adoption was better than the private rescue groups. It might be dependent on the actual dogs foster parent . They were the ones interviewing my wife.

 

[Nick]

That seems really odd, @baltocharlie . I'm thinking you just got unlucky from interviewing the fosters and that it was probably just something about the personality of that particular dog. Some pups have a harder time being left along so I can see how a protective foster might want to avoid a house where people are gone a lot. Our last foster pup (Doc) had major separation anxiety and was adopted out to a home with two working people and no kids. We got a call a few days later that Doc had shown up at the front door of the adoption center. Apparently he got stressed and escaped their house somehow, picked up the scent of the area from all the walks he'd been on and found his way there!

 

[Nick]

I feel like I'm dominating the hell out of this thread lately. Someone post some pictures of your pups!

Here's my youngest and my oldest trying out the new float toy this afternoon.

 

[slc_dan]

luxory.

I'll have some new ones of Mya after this weekend.

 

[Nick]

Okay, last one I post til someone else does. Promise.

Sage on the BMT: