Car raid

Car raid

I learned that my friend has been saving lives since fourth grade just by finding a ton of dogs toys and dog accessories in her car. Brooke Folliard has quite a few dogs, and other animals. I just figured she was an animal person, but really I never knew she was saving lives. Brooke and her family have been fostering since she was in fourth grade.

“We started fostering because we wanted to start helping at the animal shelter, but we were too young, so fostering was a great solution. If you foster dogs then they will not be put to sleep, and it allows them[the dogs] to get a good home,” Folliard said.

When I was in Brooke’s car I noticed that she had a lot of dog hair, dog drool, dog beds, dog bags, leashes, and tons of dog toys. I asked her about all of the dogs things and this is when she explained to me how she hates to leave her dogs alone, so she takes them everywhere with her.

“We own four dogs and we take them with us everywhere we go. For example on Monday we took our dogs through the drive through at chik-fil-a with us before school. We usually take them with us to school and they will be in the car when we get picked up from school. I don't plan on not taking them with me any time soon because I love being around them. They just fill me with joy,” Folliard said.

Whenever Brooke and her family go to a drive through to get food, and they have their dogs, which is almost every time, they will get their dogs something too. They will usually go to Taco Bueno because it is close to school. While they are at Taco Bueno the most popular item on the menu for her dogs are tacos or french fries. Popular restaurants to her dogs are Austin Scoops or Sweet Caroline's. Here Brooke's dogs, Stewie, Buddy, Nellie, and Tess, are lucky enough to get the doggie ice cream or the dog snow cones that they serve. Every time they go it is a blast, but Brooke has a specific memory of getting her new dog, Stewie, some food.

“My favorite memory of getting my dogs food was when it was the first week we got Stewie and we had to take him to the vet and he was really good after getting his first shot, so we took him to Austin Scoops and got him his first doggie ice cream. This is my favorite memory because he was super small, and he was really cute, and he was really excited because he had never had ice cream before. I just really like to reward my dogs for being so good, and it is so much fun to see how excited they will get when we pull up to the store,” Folliard said.

Brooke owns many animals, but she has had even more foster animals. Growing up around dogs and learning to love them caused Brooke to want to help them. She has fostered over 100 dogs, and she has stayed interested in foster for so long because she loves dogs, and she loves being able to save their lives. Brooke also thinks she will countinue to stay involved in fostering as she gets older.

“I love the joy of fostering! It is such and exciting feeling to meet the new puppy, and it is even a better feeling to know that you are saving their life. I have fostered just over 115 puppies, I also really like to own my own pets though. I own one frog, two birds, one rat, a bunch of fish, 4 dogs, 2 hamsters, 2 salamanders and a guinea pig. When I am fostering I love to see how my animals will react to the new foster puppies that we take in. The moment of feeling just joy when you see those new puppies is what keeps me wanting to foster, and I don't think I will ever stop fostering," Folliard said.