After losing our 2 dogs within a year of each other we needed time to grieve for our babies and made the decision not to get another dog for some time.
Well in January 2018 we saw a call for help from Chained dog for a lot of dogs that needed foster homes, after much discussion and our love for dogs and the thought of dogs possibly being euthanized due to not having a home meant we put our hands up to foster. Well Miss Lilica landed in our lives on 26 January 2018, and as we expected she was a little unsure about life in a house and with us (fair enough it was a big change for her). With support from chained dog and Hamish ‘the dog dude’ we took it slowly with Lilica letting her make sense of her new environment. The pack walks that are in Hamilton throughout the year were so great - not only do we get to connect with the chained dog whanau we met other dog parents and Hamish shares his extensive knowledge to provide guidance on what the dogs need in terms of our behaviour and actions and showed us in action how to do things such as introducing Lilica to new dogs. Plus Lilica got to see Hamish, since she had spent a year with him, and he taught her how to ‘dog’ she just melts at the sight of Hamish :)
The intention was always to only foster Lilica until she found her furever home (famous last words) well really the rest is history because a few months in to fostering her we had a ‘foster fail’ and became Lilica’s furever home.
She brings so much joy, happiness and craziness to our lives that we couldn’t let her go to another home. Because of her past life she does have separation anxiety so she attends doggy daycare or as we call it – School, each day while we are at work which she loves, she gets to socialise with other dogs which is great for her and gets to use up all of her energy (she has tons of energy to burn!). She just wants to be with us all of the time, it is like seeing a child develop having a rescue dog – there is so many ‘news’ for them and they soak it all up, one of the funniest things was taking her to the beach for the first time, because she didn’t know what it was she will run and attack the tide when it comes in it is hilarious to watch, this is just because she doesn’t know what it is and we get to introduce her to these new experiences all of the time, it’s awesome!
Lilica has gone from running the perimeter of our section trying to find any little way out to escape to wanting to be with us 24/7 and it is just the best feeling knowing we have given her what she not only needs but also deserves.
