I hope more people consider fostering dogs in need! It’s not lost on me that for the past several weeks since I decided to start fostering Derry, I was back to having SEVEN DOGS, and two of them were blind, which is an eerie parallel to before the fire, and definitely not by design. Derry was a special case, being a double merle puppy. He was born blind. We got to watch him grow and learn every single day from the time he was only four weeks old. He should not have even been weaned by then. He was much more frenetic than the other dogs. Today we got a call from a rescue partner that had a foster waiting for him, so Derry and two other dogs from our HSNB shelter were pulled, including at least one other puppy.

Derry loves adventures and everybody, so I know he’ll thrive wherever. I’m not worried about him in that way. The timing was good because seven dogs — with one being a needy puppy — was a lot to handle, particularly with so much else going on. These other six dogs are senior and special needs, which I gravitate towards. While I forget that Bonnie is also blind, it did make for some mishaps, especially since Derry was always experimenting with pushing boundaries. The other dogs’ patience was sometimes tried. Derry was at the “chew everything” stage, so it was a constant task to redirect him. Both Shea and I are going to miss this little “Daredevil” Derry. Yes, I have a special place in my heart for blind dogs, but Derry will most certainly have a very enriched life and be a wonderful pet for any family with just a little extra patience. This is probably the last picture I’ll take of Derry, but I’ll be following up to make sure he is thriving through this nearby rescue. I’ll always be grateful that we had time with this puppy.