We often get the response, “I don’t know how you can give them up, I couldn’t do it.” It feels like they’re suggesting they’d have love for them more than we do. But we let them go because we love them, and because I know my love is needed by another dog. If we kept my first foster Cassie, we couldn’t have saved Luna, Cesar, and the 51 dogs that came after. We let them go so we can save the next.

Saying goodbye, and sending them off to a new family is an act we do with our whole hearts. Our love is unconditional in the act of letting them go and knowing they aren’t ours, and while they leave our home to live the rest of their life with new families, there are no holes left in our hearts. It grows bigger with each foster and the memories we make together.