How Hosting Foster Dogs Is Teaching Me All I Need to Age and Die With Love

The tale of the young dog and old dog (in me).

Right now, I have an old dog. A few weeks ago, I started hosting “foster” dogs who would otherwise be in a kill shelter down South waiting to die and re-doubling other traumas they’d experienced. There’s a Brooklyn agency that focuses on rescuing these dogs by giving them decent training for the potential to be adopted into permanent homes. The adoption fee is about $500 and since losing a roommate to independent living, this household has been wanting to get a dog. At first, hosting foster dogs seemed like a good arrangement because it wouldn’t be too strong of a commitment in case I wanted to travel or, in the rare instance that, I just decided to stop having animals for my well-being. I have been largely selfish on that front, never really raising an animal except when one of my girlfriends had an adorable pitbull-boxer mix named Benny. Benny was a great companion. He would be territorial and cumbersome but never mean or too aggressive. I’d throw him a stick or a bone or a rope and he’d use his ultra-powerful jaw to pull on it until I couldn’t hold it anymore or simply conceded that it was his battle for the day. There was a little cafe on Indian Road in Inwood that put out dog treats and a bowl of water and that was Benny’s Walk of Fame…