I know we can’t all take in every animal that is brought to us at the shelter, but in an ideal world we’d have a cadre of volunteers to follow up with those whose intake we had to deny for one reason or another, which is usually simply “space.” Of course, my fellow volunteer board members and I wish we had enough people to foster every animal, but barring that, I asked the staff several months ago to start documenting the “denied intakes.” I know it’s more work, but the data has been very useful to see, as usually we would only get reports of the animals we were able to take in. I periodically review the ones that we had to deny and will sometimes email the person who inquired to make sure that the resources we gave them were helpful. More times than not, it was insufficient. I then sometimes start to worry about what the disposition of the animals will be. Well, today was another success story! I found out that two pomchi (Pomeranian-Chihuahua) puppies needed to be rehomed because of a severe allergy in the family, and that they had originally come from an unhoused woman who was unable to take care of them. I always maintain that some unhoused people are fantastic pet parents, but newborn puppies have very special vaccination needs and costs, of course. The people who brought the puppies were wonderful and so grateful that Shea and I would take them at least for now, and we were all grateful that they were Parvo negative, as that can be deadly to puppies. With the herculean effort of the staff at HSNB and some of the board and other volunteers, we were able to process these gorgeous puppies, and at the last minute, one of our regular rescue partners, Underdog, which does nothing but fostering, came through! That was helpful because Shea and I already have 5 dogs at home, including three fosters, which includes a sort of high-maintenance senior right now. However, my heart panged when I heard that they were Pomchi’s because of the relationship I had with my own Pomchi Timber for so many years. That’s an incredible story in and of itself. Shea was so sweet with these babies in their papoose and would have gladly brought them home with us, but fortunately we had another volunteer step up.