A rescue dog with a broken heart and body healed by a foster carer.

From the diary of Banjo’s foster dad.

I’ve always wanted to get a dog but having lived most of my adult life in units, I didn’t think it was fair on the dog especially with me working 40+ hours a week. So this was always something left on the ’to do’ list. Then life throws you a curve ball and completely by surprise I find myself living on the Central Coast of NSW. And in a house. And since Covid, working from home has become a reality.

I knew that when the time came I’d probably get a rescue dog – I believe that on some level they ‘know’ and are grateful to you for saving them.

My friends asked me what type of dog I wanted and all I could say was that when I was ready, I’d go to the pound and the right dog would come to me. Then late one night I’m trawling through Facebook and come across a post from Dog Rescue Newcastle calling on foster carers for dogs in urgent need.

And that’s when I saw this poor boy’s face and reading about his neglect and being abandoned and dumped in a skip bin, just broke my heart.

His body was covered in large callouses from having lived most of his six years tethered on a concrete slab. It would have been easy to just keep scrolling by – I’d done it so many times before – but what if this one time, I actually put my hand up and helped this guy out. What if this time, I’m the one that can make a difference.

So I bit the bullet and filled in the form.

I hadn’t previously considered fostering but when I read that DRN pays for all vet work, food and supplies – all I needed to provide was shelter and care. I thought this would be a good way to ’suck it and see’ – it had been many years since I’d had a dog and what if I no longer had the patience.

What if it turned out to be a bigger commitment than I was prepared for. I didn’t want to be one of those people that go ahead and adopt a dog or worse still, buy a designer breed, only to then give it up and surrender it to the pound because things just didn’t pan out as expected.

Fostering was only a short term commitment – up to six months – so I thought this was the right option for me at the time.

Early the next day I got a call from Jillian at DRN who interviewed me over the phone, as a possible foster carer. At the end of the interview she asked me that if I was approved, did I have a specific dog in mind that I wanted to foster and I said YES – dog number 3 on your Facebook post. Jillian was pleased and told me she was glad to hear this.

When I asked why, she said that so far no one had wanted him. He was at a rural pound and needed to be transported down to Newcastle, so I wouldn’t be collecting him until the next day. I shared the post on Facebook saying, “It looks like I’ll be fostering this guy tomorrow. I think he looks like a Hugo.

What does everyone think?” Most of my friends agreed that he looked like a Hugo and one even said that only if was short for Hugo Boss!

That night I had a dream and this dream I had a dog and this dog had the same face as Hugo, only in my dream I was calling him Banjo. Surely this was a sign. Because DRN is completely run by volunteers, transport from Tamworth couldn’t be arranged until later in the day which meant I wouldn’t be picking up this dog until about 8pm. I had no idea of what breed he was or even how big he was – all I knew of him was the photo I had seen and his short gut wrenching story. 

I didn’t know what temperament he had so that afternoon I googled “How to approach aggressive dogs.” Keeping in mind that I wasn’t collecting him from a pound or shelter, I was picking him up from a volunteer’s house. I couldn’t just hand him back and say sorry, not what I was expecting. In preparation, I cleared out my dining room and made space for my new boarder. This was the closest room to the backdoor and access to the backyard. I also moved the cushions off the sofa and created a makeshift bed on the floor for myself, so I could sleep in the same room as him just in case he fretted during the night.

So eight o’clock came and I arrived at the pickup point just minutes before a storm rolled in. As they brought the dog out I was surprised by how skinny he was. He had his head lowered and he just looked ‘broken.’ He was also bigger than I expected. Much, much bigger. He’d been travelling for close to four hours already and we still had another hour before we got home.

The volunteer told me he hadn’t eaten yet, so to feed him once we got home. We drove home in the storm, with thunder and lightning. Once we hit the motorway, it started to hail. I was worried as the dog was on the backseat and as I was concentrating on the road due to poor visibility, I couldn’t really check on how he was doing.

As the cars ahead of me started to pull over to the shoulder as the hail got heavier, I decided I should do the same. As I stopped the car and turned my hazard lights on I turned around to check on the boy. I didn’t know what I’d find. I know dogs don’t like thunder and loud noises and the sound of hail falling on a car’s roof just amplifies the racket.

To my surprise, he was just lying there staring at me. When I asked him if he was okay, his tail started to wag just a little bit. I thought this bodes well.

We got home, he explored, he ate, he drank, he went outside and went potty. It was close to 10 o’clock by the time I had gotten us both sorted and so decided it was time to hit the sack. He fell asleep almost straight away – I took a bit longer – sleeping on the floor isn’t the most comfortable experience. I positioned us at opposite sides of the room so as not to crowd him. 

But I left the hall light on so that if he woke, he could see I wasn’t far away. Around 2am I was gently woken by this sweet boy licking my face. I pulled him closer and there he slept next to me until morning. The next day this special (not so) little guy proved to be the gentlest, sweetest boy I’ve ever known.

It wasn’t enough for him to be sitting on the sofa next to me, he had to be on top of me.

Although he had been neglected, this boy had beautiful manners. He walked well on the lead, he was friendly with all people of all sizes and didn’t jump up on them, he even liked other dogs and cats and even a chicken that he met. He showed absolutely no aggression whatsoever. I could literally take food out of his mouth while he was eating and he wouldn’t even growl.

When I first got him he weighed 37kg and the vet advised me that the ideal weight for a Bull Arab x is 45-50kg. I would need to fatten him up before he could get desexed. Over the next couple of months we got his weight up to 49kg and he’d had all his necessary vet work done in preparation for his adoption.

During this time I joined a Facebook group for DRN foster carers where I got all the help and support I needed – this is an especially good resource for first time foster carers like myself. I posted regular updates of Banjo’s progress and a few of the members even commented that they smelled a foster fail brewing.

I found this amusing as I knew Banjo wasn’t the ideal dog for me. My ideal dog would be small to medium in size like an English staffy or a designer breed, like a cavoodle or a Boston terrier – not a 50kg Bull Arab! Also as Covid lockdowns were being lifted there was talk that I’d have to start coming into the office again and no longer working from home. Again, this wouldn’t really be fair on Banjo, or any other dog.

I was glad that I only committed to fostering as already my work situation was changing. Although a few in the group told me to be prepared that I may have Banjo for up to a year or more as six year old large dogs aren’t a popular adoption choice. People tend to go for the cute smaller puppies.

It was inevitable, but the time came around too quickly and Banjo was now ready to be adopted. The timing was perfect as I was also moving house and my new place didn’t have secure fencing in the yard.

I wrote his profile and tried to capture the sweet, gentle, loveable goofball that he is. With so many dogs up for adoption, there was tough competition looking for their forever homes. To my surprise, I received six applications after just two days of his profile going live. A couple of the applicants were also very impressive and I had a feeling that one of these would end up adopting my foster dog.

And that’s when it hit me. These applicants look good on paper – they say they work from home – but no one knows what lies ahead in the future. I had fallen in love with this boy but it was for his sake that I chose not to adopt him. I doubted that I could give him the best home possible – and that’s what he deserved! But were any of the other applicants better abled to give him his best life?

Again I turned to the DRN family and sought their advice. One of the members hit a raw nerve with me when he said, imagine how you’ll feel in a year’s time when you start getting Facebook memories of Banjo. How will you feel? Because if you think you’ll feel regret in letting him go, then do something about it now.

This was now weighing heavily on me. I had two applicants who were very keen to meet Banjo and I had to make a decision quickly. The next day I had a delayed Christmas celebration in Sydney with my closest friends (it was now April but our Christmas had to be postponed due to Covid). I told them that I was bringing Banjo with me and we’d be staying overnight.

I also told them of the decision I had to make and that I needed their help in reaching it. I really was at a loss and said that by the time I leave the following day, I wanted them to tell me what I should do. They are my closest friends and are my voices of reason. So we arrive and everyone is surprised by how big Banjo is. They’d seen photos, but it’s still not the same as seeing all 50kg of him sniffing your neck. At one stage we were all gathered in the kitchen and one of the kids alerts us to the fact that Banjo was out on the terrace and had just eaten a whole platter full of finger food – a variety of different cheeses, crackers, smoked oysters and even some home made pate made by a friend’s French mother. He ate it all. This did not bode well.

 Later that afternoon the party was over, the kids and their partners had left and it was just my friends and me and Banjo. And they said “We don’t have to wait until tomorrow, we can tell you what we think now. You’ve got to keep him!”

So it was decided.

The next day we drove home and I called Jillian to tell her that after much consideration, I had decided to adopt Banjo myself. And what she said next blew me away. She congratulated me and said she was happy to hear my news. She always felt that I was the right person to adopt Banjo.

She said that when a dog bonds that strongly with a foster carer, it’s hard for them to them adjust to another family and another home. I then asked, if that’s how you felt, why didn’t you say something sooner – it certainly would have helped me make my decision. Jillian just said “I couldn’t tell you that because it may have guilted you into adopting him. You had to arrive at that decision yourself and I’m just so glad that you did.”

It’s now been seven months and life with my sidekick is sweet. I was able to negotiate working from home part time and only going into the office two days a week. My new house is situated on the lakefront and on the days that I’m home, we go on long walks along the lake’s edge.

If there’s a rotting fish anywhere, he’ll find it. A big plus of walking (it’s actually more like hiking) along the lake’s edge instead of on the footpath is that he can roam off lead. He will sniff EVERYTHING he comes across but never strays too far from me. If he does, he just turns around and waits for me to catch up. He’s also very popular with my neighbours. Everyone knows me – not as me – but as Banjo’s dad.

One of my neighbour's kids waits for us to walk by and she feeds him banana bread – it’s his favourite thing. Her mum told me that she asked her to buy some at the shop so she could give it to Banjo. This boy steals hearts wherever he goes, and he’s certainly stolen mine. He’s not the dog I thought I’d end up with… he’s sooo much better!