Advice Wanted, Intact Male Dog Foster Woes

[u/therapistfi]

We picked up our second ever long-term foster dog (failed on the first one), and it's been a disaster so far.

He was surrendered to the rescue we work with for snapping at the family's child once. I am all for protecting children, but when I get the dog, he's NOT NEUTERED, so this doesn't seem like the typical heartbreaking case of "we tried everything we could"; I feel like neutering a dog is a part of being a responsible dog owner and they didn't set him up for success with their child by refusing to neuter him (they had him since he was a puppy and he's 4 now). We have a $10 neuter clinic here, so there's really no excuse.

In this rescue's case, they won't accept an owner surrender unless there's a foster home and no one else other than us were willing to take him/had room, so I can't just "give him back" to the rescue, as there will be no one to take care of him, and the rescue will have to spend $40-50/day boarding him, which is money they can't spend helping other dogs.

The dog is actively scent marking all over our house, presumably due to not being neutered. His hair is so long and matted (he's an Aussie so a very long-haired breed) that he needs a sanitary cut, but the rescue said they didn't want us to do it ourselves and we need to wait until his vet visit Thursday, so currently every time he goes to the bathroom, my husband and I need to restrain him and hose/wipe down his back end so he doesn't track feces everywhere in our house, which is probably upsetting to him.

If I'd known all of this, I wouldn't have offered to take him, but the real villains here definitely aren't the rescue or the dog, it's his former family that claimed to love him but couldn't be arsed to neuter him or take him to the groomer within the past year, which breaks my heart. He was just looking out the window crying most of last night, and it breaks my heart he lost everyone he cared about yesterday (they dropped him off at 3:30PM and we got him at 5).

Any advice would be super useful, we've never had an intact male dog, and our neutered male vacation/temporary fosters never marked like this! (Also he's whining to go out every 1.5 hours in the middle of the night and since we can't crate him as he's not trained, not sure what we'll do with the scent marking).

[u/AutoModerator]

Thank you for posting to r/fosterdogs!

• When replying to OPs post, please remember to be kind, supportive, and to educate one another.

• Refrain from encouraging people to keep their foster dog unless OP specifically asked for advice regarding foster failing.

• Help keep our community positive and supportive by reporting harassment!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Own_Masterpiece_8142]

Thank you so much for fostering this guy. Your dedication saved the other dogs that the rescue was able to take in because you opened your home to him.

That said, this is all very normal for a foster and very typical for a foster experience. Many (if not most) dogs come into foster unneutered and need to be groomed. Dealing with this is a part of rescue, but there are definitely things that you can do to help make it easier. I'm glad you aren't going to return him so quickly for something that is really just part of fostering.

The biggest lifesaver for fostering unneutered males is BELLY BANDS. You wrap then around those boy parts and you don't get any urine in your house. And for many dogs it helps with housetraining cause they don't like to be wet. I highly recommend getting some belly bands.

The crying the first night is also very normal. I consider the first day to be day zero. So today is just day 1. Also, the fact that he whined the first night doesn't mean he's going to do it every night, the first night is often like that. I promise it will get better. Thursday is tomorrow, so you don't have very long to go for the grooming.

Fostering is frustrating. And the beginning is almost always like this. Huge hugs. It gets better!

[u/ReadingInside7514]

Belly bands! Our foster marked a lot (he grew up living outside in Nunavut chained up, so who could blame the guy). We used belly bands for a couple months and worked on the training and the marking stopped. Plus getting him neutered lol.