Fostering Love

My 13-year-old son, Anthony, jumped out of bed one morning in March 2020 and asked me the question he’d asked every day for the last eight weeks. “Are we going to pick up the dog today?”

Two months earlier, a couple from Texas had reached out to me on social media. Their goldendoodle was pregnant, and they wanted to give us one of the puppies as soon as they were weaned. I wasn’t sure. As a single dad, I had my hands full. I had been struggling with getting Anthony, whom I’d recently adopted, to trust that I was his forever family. Besides, I hadn’t grown up with pets. I hadn’t grown up with much of anything.

I grew up in Uganda. My family was so poor that there