Friendly Front Yards: Connecting with dogs and humans — Relational Communities

I love dogs! I have three of them as a part of my immediate family, but if this didn’t already stretch my capabilities, I would have more. Our family includes our old dog Jasper, a border collie that is afraid of everything; Ruby, a vocal but sweet, ball-obsessed cocker spaniel mix; and Zinnia, our silly, yet somehow also regal, “foster fail” pitbull mix. We found all of our dogs at animal shelters and adopted them when they were already adults (no house training or chewed up shoes for me!).

Zinnia, Jasper, and Ruby (from left to right)

Adopting Zinnia meant that our family was not going to be fostering other dogs for a while. Jasper loves me and so he is willing to share his home with other dogs, but he really would prefer to be an only dog. As I watch him getting older, slower, and harder of hearing, I want to love him, on his terms, for the time we have left together. While this means pausing on fostering dogs for now, I still want to support shelter dogs and the people who care for them in some way.

Shelters, even the best ones, are very stressful places for dogs, and as a result, for the people who care for them. Animal shelters across the country have been in crisis, experiencing unprecedented overcrowding and short staffing. Working in animal shelters is difficult and heartbreaking right now. In an effort to respond to some of these challenges, CARE STL, the shelter that brought Zinnia to our family, offers dogs in their care “straycations,” or short shelter breaks. Recently, my kids and I picked up Dorris Ziffel for a day out of the shelter. We took her to area parks, had a picnic together, and shared lots of snuggles. At the end of our day, we took Dorris back to the shelter with some updated pictures for her profile, some additional information about her for potential fosters or adopters, and hopefully a little less stress.

Spending the day with Dorris put my kids and I solidly on team “get Dorris adopted” and so we thought together about how we might be able to help Dorris, taking into account both our limitations and resources. One of our resources is living on a street with lots of foot traffic, by both dogs and people, and so we decided to make a yard sign to share information about Dorris with potential adopters.

Our homemade yard sign to get Dorris adopted

This idea then intersected with an idea that I had previously about ways to make our front yard more friendly. (My next blog post will say more about what spurred my thinking on friendly front yards.) And this is how our front yard Dog CARE and Share Station was born.

Our station includes a plastic bottle that holds previously used plastic grocery bags for dog poop pick-up, a small airtight container filled with dog treats, a water cooler jug that people can use to refill the water bowl that sits at the base of the tree (we used a stainless-steel bowl that I wash every other day for sanitary purposes). We picked up a dog bone shaped basket and a wood “SHARE” sign (which is actually a food serving dish) at an area discount homewares store, and tied the basket that we filled with the dog care items to a tree that sits in our parking strip near our sidewalk.

This Dog Care and Share Station has brought me so much joy! I get a little thrill every time I see people in front of my house getting a treat while their dog’s tail is wagging, when a dog is taking a refreshing water break on a hot summer day, or when a person with or without a dog is reading about Dorris.

From inside my house, I’ve watched people take pictures of the dog station. When I am outside, people stop to tell me how much they love it. Neighbors have texted to tell me about how their dogs make a beeline to the station when they head out for their walks, and most recently an anonymous person left me a note thanking us for making the world a brighter place along with a new box of dog treats so that they too could contribute. Beyond my neighborhood, other CARE volunteers are planning their own dog stations.

At the writing of this post Dorris is still looking for a family and we are still cheering her on. We cannot wait to celebrate when Dorris and her new family find each other.

Does this sound like fun to you? Join us! Make your own dog station, or reach out to your local shelter to learn more about options like straycations, fostering, adopting, or volunteering in other ways. Then be sure to tell me about what you did!

Maybe dogs are not your thing. What are other ways you might be able to use your yard or the front of your apartment building to build social connections and relational well-being? Here are some resources from others on ways to make the spaces in front of homes more friendly.

Be sure to share your ideas or things you’ve done to make your yard more friendly!