What it's like

Fostering dogs always makes me think about that story about the old man and the kid on the beach. The tide has washed up all of those starfish--remember? And the kid is walking along the beach, and he picks one up and throws it back into the ocean. And he picks another one up and throws it back into the ocean. And so on.

And the old man, he's watching this kid and he shakes his head, you know, because he knows a thing or two, he wanted to save the world when he was a kid and then he saw just how big the world was. He was probably once an idealist, too (you know what they say cynics are? Idealists with broken hearts.). But now he has arthritis and the tide is smelly and he doesn't mean to be, but he's a little cranky because the starfish are all over this beach and the kid is just picking 'em up and throwing them back at the Atlantic like this is Skee Ball, and he hollers at the kid, "Hey! You're wasting your time. There's too many--you can't save them all!"

And the kid is undaunted. He's not even listening. And the old guy is even more riled up by that and he shouts out, "There are thousands of starfish on this beach. And there are hundreds of beaches on the coast. You can't possibly make a difference!"

And the kid, he picks up a starfish and he looks at the old man and then he turns and he throws that sea creature back into the waves, and he hollers back, "It made a difference to this one!"

And that's what fostering dogs is like.

Hamlet, our first foster.