So I left my info with the shelter

 I don't think you did the wrong thing.  You have to think of your family and animals first.  I hope Tbone feels better soon.

 I don't think you did the wrong thing either. I just think you need to chalk it up to a learning experience and do more head-thinking and less heart-thinking next time.

I hope you won't get a lot of flack for your decision to return him -- and I hope you'll wait a long time before deciding to foster again, not because you can't or shouldn't, but look back through these posts and see how stressed and upset you were in just three days. You tried to take on a lot of dog in a situation where you don't really seem to know what's going on and are still working on settling in. I think a good, long discussion with you husband about what he'll accept and won't as well as what kinds of dogs he's okay with should be in your future. You seem to have a penchant for dogs that are very prone to DA or same-sex aggression. There's not anything wrong with liking those types of dogs, but from what I gather you've said about your husband, he doesn't. You two need to be on the same page about fostering, breeds, dogs, house rules, etc. I suspect you're stressed out and upset, but when you can, go back through and read this thread. These aren't people who are wanting to see you fail, or see you at your wit's end -- we want you to succeed, to be a foster or multi-dog home, but we also want what's best for the animals involved, as I know you do.

I hope you take the advice to heart, and take a step back before jumping in again. Reach out to members who are familiar with your breed interests, but more importantly listen to and consider their advice. If you ask for help only to ignore it (not saying you did), people are going to be less and less likely to help you. Right now I think you have most of a board willing to help you and wanting to see you settle down and eventually add a foster or pup to your home. But not right now.

I'm going to throw this out there in the hopes that it might help.  Fostering is *not* easy work!

I just returned a foster dog to the rescue I was fostering for 2 weeks ago.  He was not a bad dog, but he did NOT fit in my household *at all*.  We tried to make it work for 5 months and despite there being no true aggression issues (just some overarousal that was easily managed) I still just could not deal with the stress that fostering him resulted in. 

I felt (and still sometimes feel) like a failure - I'm a professional dog trainer for pete's sake and I couldn't deal with a dog that would not stop moving, barked incessantly in the morning, occasionally got snappy with my other dogs, and who didn't read Z's cut off signals when he was being obnoxious.  He went to a temp foster where he's now displaying aggression toward dogs over twice his size and they are still looking for a new long term foster placement. 

I feel like crap for 1. basically asking the rescue to use a foster home that could've saved another dog to take my ex-foster and 2. sending him into a situation where he's obviously less happy than he was at my house but my sanity and my dogs' well-being HAS to come first.  The relief I felt after handing him over was the biggest sign to me that I was doing the right thing, even though I still felt guilt for it.

Rescue/Fostering is hard work even with the experience I have - without an organization that helps match dogs to families and offers support when a foster home is having trouble, it's even worse.

I'm considering adding a foster again in about a month.  I've seen 3 or 4 dogs go by on the email lists that I would love to "save" but I'm working *very* hard to think with my head and not my heart this time (we got our ex-foster a week after losing Maggie because we couldn't stand not having 3 dogs). 

I have told the rescue that we need an easy dog, one with no issues to speak of, with a fairly known background, and tested with small dogs and cats.  That on top of making sure the dog does not have health issues and is not an escape artist.  It's a tall order, but it's what my family needs to do to make sure that we don't put ourselves in a crappy situation again.  That and the 4-6 week break my husband and I both need for our mental health.  

DH and I are also going to be sitting down in a week or two to discuss fostering in depth again so that we're on the same page - generally DH is pretty easy going, but it never hurts to clarify what the other person is or is not comfortable dealing with.

HTH!

To be honest, I would not work with that shelter again.  They placed a foster in a home with inexperienced people without FIRST testing the dog re temperament, suitability with other dogs, or for food aggression???  I think you may be better off doing what I do.  I have a dog in my home that is iffy with some other dogs, so rather than stress her, I donate rather than foster.  No one is mad at you for doing what you needed to do.  IMO this was a very inappropriate placement for you and the shelter should really have known that.  If you still want to foster, stay away from the bullies, the guardian and working breeds - start with something more mellow and your experience will grow.  And, don't assume that T-Bone really wants a buddy that lives with him - perhaps he'd be just as happy having play dates with a friend's dog that he likes.

I really wonder at shelters and rescues sometimes. Just last night I had someone tell me a rescue placed a pregnant toy breed (pregnant by who knows who) with them after a 10 minute convo. they've never whelped a single litter before. The mind boggles!

It's likely been just poor choices of dogs. You've done your research, before purchasing a dog, and thought with your brain. When adopting, you see a poor, pitiful face, and can't resist. The money is there, the time is there, and you act on impulse, would be my guess. I am also guilty of this, and have had both good and bad results, from it. I've had dogs so wonderful I couldn't imagine life without them, and dogs I kept for the rest of their natural lives, in serious management mode, because they were unadoptable. It's what it is, either way, and you MUST choose carefully.

I've had rescues, fosters and dogs from breeders. The rescues have been the most challenging to train because they had established behaviors I needed to fix. 1 dog from a breeder that I got at 8 weeks is mostly a blank slate turned out perfect. However, I've had breeder dogs that turned out with issues because of my own mistakes and ignorance. Breed, genetics and how the dog was nutured during the critical development phases also make a difference in how the dog will mature. You never can tell and you learn more with every dog.

Btw, did you contact any all-breed rescues? Rescues that will take in any dog: mutt or purebred.

rwbeagles

I really wonder at shelters and rescues sometimes. Just last night I had someone tell me a rescue placed a pregnant toy breed (pregnant by who knows who) with them after a 10 minute convo. they've never whelped a single litter before. The mind boggles!

The county shelter one county over will adopt a dog to anyone who signs the paper and pays the fee.  They do not have funds to speuter dogs so *IF* the owner gets it done they can submit the receipt to the county and receive a rebate.   I did an emergency pull from this shelter once because a man came by and told the manager he intended to "adopt" the GSD mix so he could chain her in his front yard for guarding his trailer, and breed her.  This shelter looks like a lean-to and often have small dogs or puppies in rabbit cages.  The manager IS the staff and she would lose her job for attempting to "screen" adopters and thus turn people away.  The best she can do is call us so we can pull the dog before they are adopted into bad homes.  She called us up and we drove out on a Sunday to open the shelter and pull the dog.  She allows us to use papers from another rescue so she can give us dogs for free (that are moved into reputable rescues and experienced foster homes selected by the GSD rescue in MI).  It's depressing and astounding but what else can they really do?  If there's no money, there's no money.  The county to the north sells dogs to a class B dealer which means the dogs are used for experiments (which I am not totally against - experiments with animals - but the way in which the dogs are bought/sold and treated in the interim can be disturbing).  So, this shelter that is already in filthy conditions with no vet treatment or adopting screening process must take in dogs that are routinely abandoned just over the state line because for some reason, owners will abandon their dog in the country but make sure to drop it outside of the county that sells the unclaimed dogs to the dealer.

Oh I understand all that Lies, that's politics. But the situation I spoke of was a privately run rescue doing adoptions at a bg box pet store! I mean to me it seemed like they wanted a pigeon, plain and simple. Who knows if they're even be ABLE to fund the potential C section? What then?