Weird fostering situation - unsure what to do

[gertie06]

I’m fostering a dog for a rural shelter. They had me bring her to a local vet, but nobody would tell me why. I learned in a roundabout way that they were taking biopsies of potential mammary tumors. It makes sense, because she definitely doesn’t seem well. I realize that it’s not really my business, but I do care about her. Nobody will return my phone calls or emails regarding the results of the biopsy. I’ve tried over and over.

It matters because they’re supposed to spay her next Tuesday. This shelter does NOT have resources to treat this dog for cancer. Why would they want to spay her if she’s terminally ill? Just let her peacefully live out her days as a hospice foster, right?

I’m not sure what to do. Technically it is their dog. I guess they have a right to do what they want. But as her advocate, I feel very uncomfortable subjecting her to surgery until we know she’s healthy enough. I wish they would just farking communicate with me.

[trubandloki]

Oh my, that sounds so very frustrating. I could not foster for an organization who communicated so poorly. I mean, even the original appointment, not telling you what it was for, seems weird.

I assume you have laid out the ‘why spend money to spay her if the tumors are cancerous’ theory to your contact?

You could just adopt her and take control of her care.

[cayuse]

I hate to be the one to say it, but I’d prepare yourself for the possibility that the shelter may be planning on having her PTS depending on the biopsy results. This may be why the communication has dropped off, they might not want to discuss it until they know for sure.

[Jaegermonster]

Can you just adopt the dog? Ive done that before with some that were ill or had other issues. Or just call the shelter and tell them she ran off. then keep her inside except to potty.

[gertie06]

@trubandloki

You could just adopt her and take control of her care.

I wish. The shelter won’t allow you to adopt an animal until it’s spayed/neutered. Until that happens, you’re a foster and the dog belongs to them. Under normal circumstances, I would understand this policy. But again…why spend the money and put a terminal dog through surgery? Why inflict that on her?

Maybe I’m totally off base and the results came back negative. I find that a little hard to believe as the dog is a walking skeleton despite my best efforts. But whatever the case…why can’t they just TELL me?

I may just “forget” to take her to her appointment next week. Oops.

[gertie06]

Oh gawd, do you really think they’d do that versus allowing her foster family the option to provide hospice??

[Rackonteur]

@gertie06

I may just “forget” to take her to her appointment next week. Oops.

Oops, they forgot to report to you the results of her biopsy. Oops, they’ve forgotten to include you in the loop even though you’re the one taking care of her.
Oops, yeah, “forget” to take her to her next appointment.
Or could you find a good rescue that will take her as a rescue from these crappy people?

[cayuse]

I really, really hope not. But it was the first thing that came into my mind. They should not be keeping you in the dark, but for some reason they are and that set off alarm bells for me. Sending you many jingles for her.

[Alex_and_Bodie_s_Mom]

None of that makes any sense. I follow a lot of rescues, and all of them keep the fosters updated on everything. How can fosters provide treatment if they don’t know what’s wrong with the animal?

Who’s on the board of directors? Can you contact them and explain your concerns?

[Warmblood1]

My interpretation is - the vet clinic is allowed to communicate a pet’s medical information to the owner. If the shelter is established as the “owner” of the dog, they would have to give the clinic permission to discuss her medical information with you. They likely haven’t done so not to be malicious but it probably slipped through the cracks.

Also, I think they are following protocol with the spay. It would be really unfortunate for her to be spayed and then PTS but the shelter is probably overworked and understaffed and details are also slipping through the cracks.

I would get in contact with the director of the shelter or someone who you can speak to directly. Let them know your concerns. If you can’t get a hold of someone prior to her spay, I’d be tempted to reschedule her spay until you know how to proceed with all of her medical issues.

I’m in rescue and I’ve found that a lot of times, the bad things aren’t intentional, there is just often too much going on, as crappy as that is. This happens a lot with county shelters, especially underfunded rural ones.

[gertie06]

I agree that they’re not trying to be malicious, but I have already tried the foster coordinator, adoption counselor, rescue coordinator, and the director. Nobody will get back to me. I have tried emails and phone calls. The only luck I had was calling the emergency line (she had a mild situation a while back). I hesitate to call the emergency line again for this, but what am I supposed to do? They are really not paying attention.

[Warmblood1]

If you got through to someone, I’d call the emergency line, especially since you can’t get a hold of anyone. I would explain that her spay is Tuesday and there are only a few business days left before hand and you feel her care may be urgent and aren’t sure what to do. I think that warrants calling it. If that doesn’t work, I’d keep calling the director.

[trubandloki]

Can you show up at the shelter in person during the day to talk to someone?

[gertie06]

That’s my plan. They’re open today.

[trubandloki]

Let us know how it goes!

Hoping it is a case of the test came back as nothing so the non-communicator figured there was no reason to pass that along since the dog was already scheduled for a spay.

[furlong47]

If the dog is a walking skeleton and obviously unwell, I’m surprised a vet would be willing to spay her in her current condition. My vets always do bloodwork and such before a surgery to make sure the animal is even in shape to survive anesthesia. And that’s on animals that are perfectly healthy.

[gertie06]

@furlong47

If the dog is a walking skeleton and obviously unwell, I’m surprised a vet would be willing to spay her in her current condition. My vets always do bloodwork and such before a surgery to make sure the animal is even in shape to survive anesthesia. And that’s on animals that are perfectly healthy.

Right? We can’t get her to gain weight and her appetite is poor. Her skin condition is poor. You can see every rib. Cancer or not, there is something going on with this dog. If I hadn’t picked her up to foster, they probably would’ve just PTS and moved on. But they asked me to foster her, which, IMO, means they’re obligated to do right by her now. You don’t just operate on sick dogs to keep your spay/neuter stats up.

I’ll comment again when I get some answers today.

[chestnutmarebeware]

If this is a rural municipal shelter, as opposed to a rescue group, then in my experience (three dogs’ worth of it), they’ve basically forgotten this dog exists and written her mentally off their books. Depending on their record-keeping (and I’m betting it’s mostly paper), they’ll never contact you or remember this dog.

Since I have cats, each time I adopt a dog from my local rural municipal shelters, I’ve filled out the paperwork to foster first, to make sure that the dog is OK with cats and fits into the household. With all three dogs from two different shelters, they gave me the spay/neuter certificates upfront, but I didn’t pay an adoption fee or sign any adoption papers. But never heard from the shelters again.

Each time, I had to physically go back a few weeks later, remind them I had their dog, tell them I was keeping him, and basically force them to fill out the adoption paperwork and take my money. And in one case, they couldn’t find the foster paperwork at all, and the person I spoke with had no recollection of the dog, either! I ended up just giving them a $100 donation.

So, I’m 100% certain that she’s your dog now (thank you for your kindness, btw!) and you should just do what you think is in her best interests, given her health condition.

[gertie06]

Welp, by sheer determination, I was able to pin down the vet at the shelter.

The dog has suspected mammary tumors, but the vet said that the only real way to know is to take a full biopsy (with the dog under anesthesia) and send it to a lab. What she had done at the local vet’s office last week was only radiographs of the chest area to look for visible suspicious growths. Shelter vet looked at the radiographs while I was on the phone with her. She said they looked okay, and that the dog was in acceptable condition to move forward with the spay. While she’s under general anesthesia, they will take a biopsy. She also said that while she looks anorexic to me, she has enough muscle to do fine for the spay. Okay, fine, I guess.

She also mentioned that they detected struvite crystals in her urine. This means she has to be on a special (quite expensive) diet for life or else she’ll develop bladder stones. Ugh, this poor dog can’t catch a break.

I’m afraid I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I really thought this dog would be adoptable, but now, I have doubts. Adopters might overlook her age and breed, but special needs dogs are a hard sell. My husband isn’t especially excited about permanently caring for this dog, but if I return her to the shelter, we all know what’s going to happen. Urgh.

[thatmoody]

Oh man, I’m so sorry. FWIW, I dealt with a similar case in a chihuahua we had gotten from a rescue. She was about 9 and unspayed (she’d had a couple of litters) and had suspected mammary tumors. We got her spayed and they biopsied and removed the tumors during the spay (she also had the beginnings of pyometra and it was a rough surgery because they had to cut her open quite a long way to remove all of the tumors. The recovery was very difficult). The biopsy came back negative, and she lived (with me) to the ripe old age of 17 and was pretty darned healthy for the rest of her life. I’ve seen it go the other way, but I did want to mention that mammary tumors are often benign.

My current dog is on the Hills C/D for urinary crystals (and filtered water to drink) and I definitely hear you on the expense of that food! I wonder if there are other, less costly, options for her.