Foster Story: Max & Charlotte

I’m Jessica Silva and I’m a Dog Care Associate at Valley Animal Center. Not only do I love working with animals at work, I love to take home dogs who need fostering.

This is Charlotte (brown) & Max (white). Both came to Valley Animal Center very nervous. They were nervous to the point they would get snippy if we even approached them. We finally decided to put them together to possibly help socialize them.

I slowly started to sit in their kennel to feed them wet food. Max would approach me and eat from my hand while Charlotte was still stiff and nervous, but she would at least w

ag her tail. I decided it would be best to take them home for a few weeks to better socialize them so they can find their forever homes!

Max has improved so much! A home environment was all he needed! He’s still scared, but he greets me at the door with his tail wagging and just being the dog that he is, while getting the attention and love he craved.

Charlotte, to this day, is still very nervous and frightened. The only time she lets me give her kisses and cuddles is when it’s time for bed. I’m still not able to pick her up without her freaking out but that’s ok! With patience and time, she will be ready to find a forever home!

My own dogs are used to me bringing home foster dogs because this definitely isn’t my first time doing so. My dogs help Charlotte and Max in so many was. They help show Charlotte and Max that everything is ok.

Fostering definitely isn’t an easy thing. Bringing dogs in with no training gets tough, but I love being able to show my foster dogs that they are in a better place. I want to show them they are very special fur babies!

Of course, I wish I could just keep them all!

I have so many videos and pictures of Charlotte and Max when they were still scared, but we can now enjoy their happy pictures where they are comfortable and happy!

JESSICA SILVA has been with Valley Animal Center for two years. She absolutely loves what she does here. As a Dog Care Associate, her position involves taking care of dogs and helping them with their medications, vaccines and socialization. This is all so the dogs are on track to finding their forever homes. Jessica has been in the animal field for about four and a half years now. She was previously with Central California SPCA and did a seasonal job at Elaine’s Pet Resort. On her personal time, Jessica has done transports, which means she takes dogs from high-kill shelters to foster homes, helping dogs get a fresh start and a second chance at life. She also loves to do personal rescues, helping get strays off the streets in hopes of finding their owners, or she gets the strays into rescues to find new forever homes. Luckily for Jessica, majority of the time the dogs she rescues have microchips, or the owners have been looking on the lost and found sites. Reuniting dogs with their owners always makes Jessica happy. “That’s why it’s so important to microchip your dogs,” Jessica said, “or have identification tags so we can get these babies safe at home!”