This is a Volunteer Spotlight article written about Jodi Little and her volunteer work at a Foster and Trainer with Big Bones Canine Rescue, a non-profit no kill shelter located in Northern Colorado.
Introducing foster spotlight, Jodi Little! In just a little over a year, Jodi has become one of our most inspiring and dedicated foster moms. She is an experienced “dog person” and has 10 dogs of her own. 3 of them are BBCR alumni. In addition, In addition to her 10, she has fostered up to 8 dogs at a time. Most of her daylight hours and many evening hours (6 am to 10 pm) are spent going back and forth between her two “packs.”
Jodi is married to her helpful husband, Wade, who is very supportive of Jodi’s interest and affection for the dogs. Jodi and Wade run a successful flooring business out of Fort Collins. In terms of fostering, Wade offers a male perspective and helps dogs who are gender selective or gender fearful. Jodi’s mom, Helene, resides with Jodi and Wade and offers an additional opportunity for learning about a dog’s personality. Despite being 89 years old Jodi has taught her mom how to work with all the dogs in the house.
According to Jodi’s mom, Jodi began working with dogs when she was 4 years old. She’d walk all of her neighbors dogs and bring home every stray she found. In college, she continued to work with strays. She and Wade have lived in a few different zip codes, but once they found their acreage in Fort Collins, she knew this is where she could realize her training center dream. Jodi offers dog training to the public for a fee, but her heart is in rescue.
Jodi’s training philosophy is built around studying each dog’s natural instincts and habits. She models her strategies from studying wolf and dog behaviors for the last several decades. She teaches her clients to read their dog, calm their dogs fearful or over excited behavior and then gives the clients training techniques to help any behavior the dog is demonstrating. . When she trains volunteers, she encourages them to watch her friend Doggy Dan’s training videos to understand the philosophy. She maintains a relationship with Doggy Dan who is one of the top dog trainers in New Zealand for encouragement.
Jodi’s vision of working with rescue dogs has never wavered. Her practice has undergone several iterations. She began by trying to teach the “rancheros” how to approach and settle new dogs. We were receptive, but it is time consuming and we were more focused on getting them fed and cleaning their kennels. Then she tried working with a few folks at the ranch who volunteered for just the training. There were other hurdles and eventually she formed a Sunday afternoon group of volunteers who are committed to learning about her training strategies. These volunteers can bring their own foster, or their own resident dog, or they can work with Jodi’s foster dogs. She has found this a much more successful and satisfying way to teach additional people.
Jodi’s goal is to find additional fosters and train new and existing fosters to specialize in different types of dogs, she would like to train fosters to help any type of behavior that keeps the dogs from being adopted or to help the dogs that get returned due to behavioral issues. Her goal is that no dog would be left in a shelter due to behavioral issues, which is why she named her business FurEver Home. Jodi specializes in fearful / anxious dogs and dogs that are overly excited and / or reactive or aggressive in any way . Jodi is open to more volunteers, especially those who might work with her foster dogs and learn to foster these special group of dogs. Hint hint.
At Jodi’s foster home, her focus tends to be the fearful dogs. She recognizes they are a special group and need time first to decompress, then to trust, and then to integrate with other dogs. She also fosters dogs that are more reactive. The strategies are similar. They need to rest, rest, rest. Then she can assess what they need. Most often, too much adrenaline is running through their veins. Once they are rested, and relieved of the adrenaline overload, she can teach them how to settle down and get along with others.
Jodi has fostered 60 dogs with Big Bones in her first year as a volunteer for Big Bones. She has had some of the most challenging dogs. Remember, Max? He was highlighted in the last newsletter. Jodi worked and worked and worked to help Max into a wonderful home. It took many months, but with time and patience, Max is living happily with his forever family. More recently, she helped sweet, sweet Susie find her forever home. Susie was a “mess.” She had phantom pain and was obsessive with chasing her tail or a toy or ? She became rested. Even with rest, she was a bit dog selective, but the right family found Susie. Jodi continues to be available to the new family for training, but Susie is thriving!
The more challenging pup right now is Khaleesi. Khaleesi had been in shelter for a long time. When a spot opened up in her foster center, Jodi stated that Khaleesi was “on my heart.” Now, Khaleesi is described as “easy peasy.” Once she had a reputation for being dog aggressive. At Jodi’s center, Khaleesi mingles and plays with other dogs with NO problem. She is a beautiful girl, just waiting for her forever story to materialize.
Jodi is truly an inspiring foster mom and Big Bones volunteer. She has developed a wonderful training center where she mentors fosters and she wishes she could do more. She is an excellent example of what a foster family can do for a dog. Most of us already know Jodi. If you don’t, look her up on the Big Bones Volunteer and Foster page. Get to know her. She’ll inspire you too.