People Are Sharing How Their Pets Have Changed In A Wholesome "Then And Now" Challenge (30 Pics)

Bored Panda reached out to Melissa Cohen, who has been fostering puppies for Pitties & Purrs Rescue in Baltimore, MD and helped to save and treat many pets with difficult medical conditions and injuries.

“Arya [the dog in the photo above] definitely motivated us to focus on medical fosters—the dogs who need extra time and care. For instance, our current foster dog’s injuries were so horrific, I couldn’t show her on that page. It’s against the rules.”

Melissa said that Arya became the main inspiration for fostering the most difficult medical cases in pets. “Before we took Arya, my husband and I fostered puppies who just needed basic care before they could be adopted.”

Melissa said that Arya had to be hospitalized for 5 days after arriving in Maryland. “When she came home, our focus was on improving her internal health and putting some weight on her.”

She also said that healing the skin was quite simple, since it just took some basic medicine. “Mange dogs like Arya look scary, but they’re often easy to cure,” said Melissa and added that the time difference between the two photos is just five weeks. Fortunately, the girl is now happy in her forever family and Melissa has helped more dogs with medical conditions since.

Melissa also said that fostering is the most rewarding things a human can do. “Watching a scared or sick animal transform and trust you is so satisfying.”

She also urged potential foster carers not to be afraid that they'll have to keep all the fosters. “We’ve fostered 12 dogs so far and haven’t kept one, because we know that when a foster dog is adopted, our job starts all over again with the next.”