I had been looking forward to seeing Mickey in his new foster home since he would have children and dogs to play with and a big yard in which to run about. The only concern I had was that the yard had only a three foot fence, and I could see Mickey easily bounding over it and wandering the neighborhood.
Sunday morning Christy tried to get a hold of the foster so we could solidify our plans of meeting up with them in the afternoon. However, Christy was starting to get a bad feeling about it all when she couldn't get a hold of them. They had a new cell phone and voicemail wasn't set up yet. Being able to get a hold of a foster immediately is quite important. You are after all entrusting a life in their hands.
So, when the foster finally called her back (half an hour before our originally scheduled meet up time), Christy thanked them for their offer but had decided it was best that Mickey be placed elsewhere, with a more secure fence.
But the problem was of course that I had already had Mickey an entire week. I am not allowed to have a resident dog in my place, and I feel like I'm given a lot of leeway with my transports and "visitor dogs". I usually only have a dog for a night or two; nothing like a full time roommate. I also never leave the dog alone--ever. I don't just lock up my apartment and go to the movies for the afternoon, leaving a potentially loud and miserable canine to bark and whine and howl while I'm gone.
But the fact was I needed to get some human things done: go to the grocery store and go house hunting. If I owned a house this whole problem wouldn't exist since I could easily leave a dog alone in my own home. Christy was willing to pay for boarding, so I was supposed to bring Mickey there Monday morning, and he would stay until Thursday morning when he would hop a flight to Canada. The boarding facility of choice was right down the street, had open runs for dogs to mingle, and was a really good facility. I convinced myself it would be okay because I could go visit him throughout the week. But then that fell through.
The next best and closest boarding facility was about eight miles away, and it was strictly a kennel; meaning it was just dog runs with indoor and outdoor areas, each dog in their own kennel which consisted of concrete floors and chain link doors and fences. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this set-up. Many dogs have to be boarded while their owners are on vacation and it's no problem at all. But Mickey had done so well with the house training, I didn't want him to be put back into a shelter-like atmosphere where he would have to defecate whenever he wanted right where he was.
I couldn't take Mickey house-hunting with me because he was just getting used to the idea of car rides. I didn't know how he'd fare having to sit alone while I disappeared from view for ten or fifteen minutes. There was only one solution: to board him.
I finally experienced what it is like to be a mother with a child in daycare. As soon as I dropped Mickey off at 10am, I was on the clock. I wasn't letting Mickey spend the night there, so I only had 6 hours to get all my humans tasks accomplished so I could pick him up before closing. If he was on a flight on Thursday, it meant I'd only be extending his stay with me for three nights and two days. I felt I could get away with that. And, in all honesty, I couldn't justify not following through.
I rationally understood that had I not stepped up to the plate last week that Mickey would have been in boarding all this time, but now that I had entered the picture, I couldn't just pull out because "Well, 7 days is acceptable, but 9 just isn't doable." It didn't make sense, and I couldn't live with myself. It's not like I had a job to go to or other responsibilities. It would mean Mickey would be in boarding all alone, while I hung out in my apartment all alone.
So, human tasks finished by 4pm, I picked back up my charge who was so excited to see me he couldn't hold still to let me get his harness on. And when Mickey willingly hopped up into the driver's seat of the truck in one leap, I saw just how happy he was; his face was beaming, his tongue was out, his tail was slightly wagging, and he had the largest erection I have ever seen a dog have.
When he finally moved over to his seat and allowed me to get behind the wheel, we drove away from the boarding facility so we could spend the next two days together before he became an ex-patriot.
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