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Anna Silverman’s children are grown, but in the early hours of the morning, little cries from the other room still wake her.
Silverman rushes to the side of her latest charges, a litter of just-born puppies that she takes in about every eight weeks. Her family was one of the first three foster families to volunteer with the Pound Puppy Rescue Organization (PPR), and now she helps run it.
“We have been doing this for four years now, and over 150 puppies and mother dogs have come through our home,” she said.
After raising three children at home, Silverman reentered the workforce as a substitute teacher, and her daughter encouraged her to get a puppy to tend to. An online search led her to Pound Puppy Rescue.
She found her calling as a foster mom on a visit to meet one of the puppies she had spotted online. “We had eight puppies climbing all over us, and I went, ‘This is fun!'”
She began her foster care for the puppies soon after, and has managed to find families for all but two pups whom she couldn’t bear to give away.
“I am requested frequently for fostering” due to her flexible schedule, she said.
A foster family’s duty is to take in puppies that are too young to have a good chance of survival in a shelter before they reach an adoptable age. Until eight weeks old, puppies run a high risk of contracting diseases and dying in a shelter environment.
PPR is a Bay Area organization its puppies are available to prospective owners from the South Bay to Marin but most of the puppies it rescues come from the Central Valley, where there are too many dogs and not enough volunteers or space in the shelters. Some shelters have seen mortality rates as high as 60 to 70 percent. So volunteers at those shelters depend on organizations like PPR to rescue the dogs and find them happy homes before it’s too late.
Those homes can even include local leaders: According to Silverman, Mountain View Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga was taking home a puppy of her own on Friday. The lucky pooch’s name is Toto.
In 2009, 1,000 puppies were saved, and the goal for 2009 is 1,350.
Although they want to find a home quickly for every puppy, the adoption process isn’t easy. A lengthy application, an interview and a home check are all required. Because of these measures, say PPR organizers, the adoptions have a high success rate, resulting in happy families, happy dogs and rarely a returned puppy.
One way to help PPR is to become an interviewer, Silverman said. The puppy demand is high and they could use the help. “I was getting 30 applications a day for one litter,” she said.
Another option is becoming a foster family. Though much more time-consuming, organizers say it can be highly rewarding.
“[When] I put a little puppy into the arms of its new adoptive family, well, there is just no better feeling in the world,” says Silverman.
Perhaps not surprisingly, a social network has sprung up around PPR. The organization has a Facebook page, and rave reviews of its services are posted there. Adoptive families and their puppies also are known to attend annual PPR reunions with their littermates.
PPR holds adoption events all over the Bay Area, often at Pet Food Express stores. For more on applications, event dates and locations, visit www.poundpuppyrescue.org or look for the group on Facebook.
