Should we foster her?

[jennielynn1970]

My cousin, Tim, called my mom yesterday to ask a favor of her. He is in the marines and is going to be deployed back to Iraq in September. His favor? He needs someone to keep his two year old female "spoiled rotten princess" Saint Bernard for about seven months while he is overseas.

It's good he is checking for foster homes well in advance of the September deadline.

3.) Another question that my mind is asking is, "What about expenses?" Tim is having financial problems at the moment and he may not be willing to pay for the dog's care.

If it is Tim's dog, Tim should be responsible for the expenses. Just like if the dog was being boarded or kenneled, he would have to pay for the expenses there. If he is having financial difficulty, maybe he should think of placing the dog up for adoption since he will also be deployed for a good length of time and has a history of dumping dogs.

4.) Tim is the same cousin who had an unnuetered Black Lab. While he was going through a divorce, caring for two young kids, and getting back on his feet he decided to buy a female Black Lab puppy. Once he realized they were acting up (because of no training) he got rid of them.

Just a couple of weeks ago he purchased a Pittie puppy. It is now gone.

Right after that he obtained this Saint. All of the dog change-ups have occured in this past year.

Between the financial issues, and the above concerns, I would suggest he rehome the Saint. Why is he adopting these dogs and then dumping them? I think if you took in this dog for him, whether he is being deployed or not, you're just enabling him to keep doing this to animals in the future. What are the odds, realistically, that he WILL take the dog back when he comes back?

Because of Tim's unreliability, my mom is worried that after we've had the Saint for almost a year that when he comes back he won't want it back.

If we don't end up taking the Saint in it will probably end up in a less than desirable situation - a shelter or just given away on a whim.

What do you all think? My mom is trying to decide for herself, but she values my opinion as well as you guys', even though she doesn't know any of you.

Not sure whether you and your mom can see the RED FLAGS waving all over the place here, but I sure do!

Try to get your cousin to make a responsible choice to rehome the dog if he thinks that he will not want to take her back (or is already regretting adopting her) once he comes back from Iraq.

[cyber-sibes]

You've already been given lots of good info & options - I just want to addrress one thing - if Tim is in the service, then he can use on-base veterinary care that is WAY WAY WAY less expensive than civilian vets. (hubby's a DOD employee, so we can take ours to the Navy vet for checkups cost: $2.00. Vaccines cost about 1/4-1/3 normal rates, & heartworm & flea/tick meds are about 1/2 price.)

Whatever he decides, be sure he takes care of all this several weeks before he goes. (it may take that long to get an appt.) Considering how inexpensively he can take care of these things, foisting all these expenses off onto family or friends would be very unfair.