During our interview for Winnie's story, Danielle, Holly and I talked at length about how much we owe to our dogs' foster family. If it wasn't for their willingness to open their homes and hearts to at-risk rescues, it's possible that neither Stevie nor Winnie would have made it to NYC to find their forever homes with us. That said, I'd be completely remiss if I ended without a few words from Leora and Daniel (and photos of their adorable rescue Rudy!)
Leora: We actually started fostering because of Rudy. Once we adopted him, we’d learned from his foster mother that he had had a bunch of foster siblings when he was rescued and he’d gotten along really well with them. He wasn’t getting along very well with dogs on the street, so I thought he could benefit from having more dogs in his life. I’d mentioned that maybe we should adopt another dog but then we decided that that would be too much. So we started fostering instead.
Daniel: It was all Leora, but it (fostering) fills a very real need in the rescue world. We were so grateful to Rudy’s fosters.
Leora: Rudy’s foster had him for over 3 months. So that was part of it for sure. It was also post election stuff. I felt like I couldn’t do anything political that was making a difference, but I could do this small thing.
Daniel: The whole foster world is all women.
Leora: Yes, it’s all women. There’s not a single man that I’ve been in touch with from any of the rescues. As far as I know, Waggytail is entirely women-run, and Social Tees is mostly women too. It was a very different New York that I was getting access to
Leora: At first we started with a few short term fosters, like overnight emergency situations. So it felt like a weird underground system. I remember getting a call saying, “There’s an emergency, can you pick this dog up from Battery Park City in an hour?” And it was during a blizzard, it was snowing. I had to get on a train at 11pm to go to this fancy Battery Park apartment building and this person just handed me a dog. And I was on the subway with this homeless dog that I didn’t know. Everything was so precarious. But it felt like, it was either you or no one who was going to help these dogs.
Q: What three things has Rudy taught you since you've adopted him?
A: He's taught us so many things! So here are three-ish: He's taught us so much about love, about sweetness, about forgiveness and resilience, and also about how to play! He's the source of so much joy for us, I can't believe I went 15 years without a dog. Won't be doing that again!
Sending endless thank yous to Leora Moranis, Daniel Pearce and Little Guy Rudy for being an amazing foster family to Stevie, Winnie and all of the other dogs that came before them!