‘She deserved a loving home, not a garage kennel’: California woman fosters dog from shelter, faces false accusations from the rescue’s president, but with volunteers defending her she finds strength knowing the pup was saved because of her care

Author image for Laurent Shinar
Laurent Shinar • Writer and Editor
Sep 5, 2025 11:00 AM EDT

Doggo adoptions are tricky business. You never quite know what you are going to get with a poor pupper who has lived a life less fortunate, but usually that is where your problems begin and end when it comes to adoption. You would be hard-pressed to believe that you would end up getting shouted at by the CEO of the rescue that you adopted from and all over a simple bit of concern that you were showing over your newly adopted doggo's behavior, but that is exactly what happened to the would-be dog momma featured in today's story.

This was meant to be the story of two lost souls saving each other, when instead it turned into a yelling match of unhinged proportions that proves that even the head of an organization devoted to darling doggos can be a lunatic.
 

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  • 01
    I am 28. My life sucks, but I won't get into the details.
    via EberliCharo
  • 02
    I have really been struggling with my depression recently. I have barely left my house in months, have lost touch with all of my friends, and keep missing events I would normally attend. I no longer have any hobbies.
    via EberliCharo
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    I got the idea that I could do some good, be part of an organization, and utilize my free time by taking in a foster dog. A local animal rescue brings dogs from a k | shelter in California to save their lives and find them forever homes. I signed
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    up to foster, was approved, and brought home a beautiful dog on April 22nd. Being isolated and ded for months, I had also naively hoped that this experience would also introduce me
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    to new people. I met a few people at the transport pickup. One person, I'll call her Anne, stood and talked with me for over an hour before we decided we can talk later on WhatsApp. The other person, I'll call her Hannah, was mostly
    via EberliCharo

  • Well, yeah, that is a wonderful idea to try and help yourself heal from trauma. This kind hearted rescuer was most certainly on the right track with her thinking and made a super healthy decision to team up with a poor pupper who needed as much love as she did.

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    interacting with me in the group chat about the foster dogs, and after the group chat was closed I messaged her privately to continue our conversation. She was very enthusiastic about talking to me, and often I would have to end the
    via EberliCharo
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    conversation myself because I was busy. The timeline for these dogs is a week of decompression in the foster home, and then the rescue asks if you would like to adopt the dog or not
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  • 08
    On day 6 of our decompression week, I had a relatively minor concern with some mood swings my foster dog was having. I worried that if
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    she abruptly got snippy with another dog, that dog might not react as passively as mine do. My dogs just run away from conflict, but I had no way of knowing what other dogs she could encounter after adoption would do.
    via EberliCharo
  • 10
    We had been working on this behavior and she made major improvements, but time was running out. So I asked Hannah for advice through WhatsApp, since she's a foster coordinator and has likely seen this before.
    via EberliCharo

  • Yikes, it is ridiculous how stressful it is to find out these kinds of things once you have already bonded with and been caring for a doggo for a while. Like, what was this woman meant to do, not get in touch with the rescue for some advice?

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    dog on leash aggresively barking
    via Viktoriya Dixit via Adobe Stock

    Disclaimer: This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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    I guess I was bad at describing the issue, because Hannah replied that they'd be taking the foster dog away from me. So I panicked and tried to clarify that this really wasn't that big a deal, no one was in danger, she was not in danger, I'm
    via EberliCharo
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    just trying to figure out what the options are. I did send more messages here than I should have, I admit. Hannah responded rather sharply that she was busy and we could talk later. So I said sounds good and left it at that.
    via EberliCharo
  • 14
    So I figured that if Hannah was busy, I would just send my question to the email address for fostering, since those emails are monitored by more people. The solutions I proposed included leaving her with us a little longer so that I
    via EberliCharo
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    can finish working out what is triggering her, spaying her before she goes up for adoption because being unfixed could be the reason she's getting moody, or simply listing her up for adoption as a dog that would do best in a
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    household with no other dogs. No one got back to me right away, which was fine because this wasn't a big problem for us and she was doing amazingly with our other dogs.
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    Day 8 rolled around and the adoptions team sent their standard "are you adopting?" email. Since I hadn't heard back from the previous email, I decided to just forward the same email with a note at the top saying that I haven't received a
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    response to this yet and am hoping to get a response from more qualified people about it before she goes up for adoption. However, by day 9, I had myself thinking maybe I was just overreacting.
    via EberliCharo
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    She's fine, neither she nor my dogs are in danger here, and I'm sure someone has had time to at least read my email so far. If it really was an issue, they'd have responded. I'm probably just wasting their time by even asking. The
    via EberliCharo
  • 20
    adoption email asked for a response within 48 hours, so I decided to just go ahead and do a writeup on her and send along some photos. I started the email with a note apologizing for two emails in a row, but that I figured that if they haven't gotten back to
    via EberliCharo
  • 21
    me yet, it must not be a big deal and we can move forward with the process. Note that at this point, I hadn't heard from anyone in the rescue since day 2 or 3 when I confirmed with the vet staff that my foster wasn't fixed because her papers were
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    unclear. I had a few casual chats with Anne and Hannah on WhatsApp, but nothing official. None of my emails about the behavior had been acknowledged or responded to in any way.
    via EberliCharo
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    Later in the day on day 9, I received an incredibly cold and rude email from the president of the rescue telling me that I needed to return my foster dog to them as soon as possible and that I was clearly incapable of caring for this dog.
    via EberliCharo
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    Confused, I emailed back for clarity. Surely there was some sort of misunderstanding? Nope. She accused me of spamming her team with "1000s of emails and messages" regarding the dog, proving that I was incapable of caring for
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    her. She also accused me of doing nothing to fix her behavior issues myself, allowing her to recklessly attack other animals, and that by doing so it is reinforcing the behavior which will make her unadoptable.
    via EberliCharo
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    dog barking through a gap in a gate
    via kvdkz via Adobe Stock

    Disclaimer: This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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    Obviously, none of that is true, and there's been a massive miscommunication here. She also said I was hounding her volunteers and getting upset when they didn't respond right away.
    via EberliCharo
  • 28
    She just told me to have the dog back by a set time. That was it. Or so I thought.
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  • 29
    Late that night when everyone in my house was sleeping, my phone rang with an unknown number. I answered. The caller asked my name and I confirmed it. She identified herself as the president of this animal
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    rescue. Then she launched in an absolute tirade of abuse. She told me I was mentally unstable, needed mental help, that people like me shouldn't be allowed in society (she had absolutely no idea
    via EberliCharo
  • 31
    about my background). She told me I was done, I was never allowed to volunteer or foster for their rescue again, that she would make sure I never work with any animals in my city again. She used a bunch of slurs and derogatory terms and
    via EberliCharo
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    insulted me in any way she could think of. She said I was told to never contact anyone from the rescue again and that she knew I had contacted Hannah, and how dare I.
    via EberliCharo
  • 33
    We returned the dog on time. The staff at the facility wouldn't so much as look us in the eyes, they just whisked the dog away without even a goodbye. I cried the whole way home.
    via EberliCharo
  • 34
    That whole night I was seriously struggling with my mental health. I cried. I felt like I had completely failed my foster dog.
    via EberliCharo
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    Update May 6th: The volunteers at this rescue are great. When the president responded to my email, she added pretty much the entire core rescue team to the recipient list so everyone could see the accusations
    via EberliCharo
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    and the threats of legal action. Many of them knew me, knew the situation, and knew it was b .t. They spoke up for me with the president and the board. They've been having meetings about it all week. I think someone quit.
    via EberliCharo
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    Unfortunately, despite several volunteers speaking up, the board doesn't care. They all back the president and stand behind what she did.
    via EberliCharo

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deserved accusation dogs defend woman puppy foster kennel california reddit story saved president false dog story volunteer shelter dogs loving home rescue
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