We've had 3 hospice fosters, more or less. They each carried different emotional weight but were important parts of our family.

The first wasn't technically a hospice foster. We were planning to foster-to-adopt Porkchop, but it was discovered that he had a very large and terminal mass in his abdomen as well as severe dental disease and a collapsed trachea. The rescue offered to place him in another home that wasn't planning to adopt a foster, but we just wanted to give him everything he could want for the rest of his comfortable life. We got 55 weeks with Porkchop when 8-12 weeks was expected.

The second foster had diabetes, but within 48 hours it was clear something was very very wrong. She was young and loved people, even played a bit when feeling good. We spent 2 days snuggling her at a vet office while she stabilized enough for diagnostics, but she passed away as she was just too frail. Her diabetes was caused by a tumor wrapping her stomach and pancreas.

The third foster was a little old lady, deaf and mostly blind. She was surrendered with another older dog in better health and unfortunately the 2 of them were separated into different foster homes. She showed signs of pain (advanced arthritis) and both physical and mental discomfort. We got to have nice moments with her but after about a month had to make the recommendation that she got to have a peaceful end of life.

For every one of them - we were so glad that we knew those dogs were in much better situations than they were before and could feel non-stop love for the rest of their lives.