The Pets Thread

[Malarkey]

Trelane, the Squire of Gothos

[Grey_Devil]

Lets be honest, you’re probably the squire here

[kxkvi]

What a gorgeous tabby!!!

[Malarkey]

No, really, he’s a proto-Q. He’s a very naughty boy!

[zfirphdn]

Pink kept the dog after all.

(I posted on The Other Place pet thread when) She picked up a rescued puppy in Minnesota to foster during her summer tour, with the plan that it would find a forever home at the end of the tour in South Carolina. She joked at the time about keeping it herself, though.

(Gift link)

Brooks: Pink’s foster fail is a big win for one Minnesota puppy

In the end, she told the rescue that she’d “[n]ever been happier to fail.”

[IronEdithKidd]

You know what? Foster fails are just pet families that didn’t yet recognize they were forever homes. (Or forever homes that erroneously thought their maximum pet occupancy limit was already met.)

Good for Pink!

[zfirphdn]

I’ve never understood why they use the word “fail”, it sounds so negative. But I’ve never been involved in pet fostering…

I wonder if a “fail” is considered a loss to the organization because then the person probably won’t (or, at least, may not) be available to foster more animals in the future, and the org will need to recruit and train someone new? I’m guessing it’s harder to find someone who’s willing to foster, than to find people who are willing to simply adopt.

And yes, good for Pink, she was in a good position to publicize pet fostering and/or adoption to her large audiences.

[OnceImmutableMike]

Not a pet so much as a garden visitor.

I’m not body-shaming, but as blue-tongue lizards go this is a chonker.

[Grey_Devil]

Yeah I think that’s usually why the term is used, but it’s always used in good fun from what I’ve seen. Everyone knows that the adoption was a good outcome

[zfirphdn]

That’s good to know. Clearly I was taking it too literally

Though I can’t help thinking of alternative terms…

Perhaps it was a foster fantastic—so good it just couldn’t be ended!
Or a fortuitous foster—found the right home by chance, right off the bat!

Now I’m imagining a children’s book with a title like Fenwick the Fantastic Fortuitous Foster Feline or something

[Grey_Devil]

Another thing that i can think of is that jokingly using the term “foster fail” also drives the point that long term fostering is hard. I could see myself fostering, but i just know that i would have a really hard time letting that animal go after i’ve spent time with it.

And let me know when you’re done making that kid’s book

[Murgatroyd]

When my daughter was teaching English in NYC, one of her roommates worked at an animal shelter. My daughter offered to foster two blind kittens for the shelter. Shortly thereafter, she posted “Well, I just adopted two kittens. Hands up, everyone who saw that coming!”