Meet Diana & Craig!

Tell us a little bit about yourself:

“We are Craig Skinner and Diana Halar. Craig and I met while playing soccer, he was our teams goalie, and I played forward. We always talked about dogs and soccer. Eventually that shared passion lead us to start dating, and ultimately into a long term engagement (9 years so far and counting), someday, we will marry, with all of our foster dogs as brides-pups and grooms-pups. Together we have 5 foster failures, which we call our “glorified stuffed animals with a heart.” Because pretty much, that is what our five furry babies are! They don’t do much other than sleep, eat, poop and sleep some more, what we get out of that is unconditional LOVE!”

How long have you been volunteering and fostering with SGA? And how many dogs have you fostered?

“We have been volunteering with SGA since 2016. We have had 23 SGA fosters and 37 with another rescue prior to SGA. In total we have had 60 foster dogs, and of those kept 5”.

What would you say to someone who’s thinking of volunteering/fostering?

“It is painful to let a pup go after you fostered it, but remember this, your job is to be a soft landing spot until the pup finds its furever happy after. Our first 10 fosters made our eyes swell up after they were adopted. Tears would flow for days, but once we realized our job is to be a temporary, soft, loving landing spot, we got it. We understood that’s our job and it made it so much easier. To help these dogs find a great home, is worth all the heartache, because your heart heals knowing they are in a good spot”.

What is something you’ve learned through volunteering in rescue?

“How resilient dogs are. They can trust again, they can love again, and they will be loyal even after they have been hurt by humans”.

What’s one of your favorite memories with SGA?

“One of our favorite memories is Huey. One Thursday evening Diana drove from University Place (south), WA, to Poulsbo, then all the way up to Snohomish and then back to University Place in one evening just to pick up Huey and deliver him to Craigs house in Snohomish. Instantly our 5 pups and Huey hit it off, and we fell in love with him. The weeks following, Huey had a few applicants, Diana always does her due diligence and researches the applicants and then reaches out to them for a meet and greet. Huey had a few meet and greets. They didn’t work out, not due to any fault of his, it was typically due to living situation, or too small or simply not a good fit. Then came along Jaedra, we met her at a park, we had a good feeling right away. I believe we spent almost 2 hours with her and Huey at the park. We chatted, we got to know her, she got to know Huey and us. We left there knowing this was the PERFECT match. A few days later, Jaedra picked Huey up for his trial, well, he never came back as a foster, he did come back as a visitor, which we of course loved and look forward to in the future. Just recently we ran into Huey and Jaedra at their garage sale, Huey was in the window, when he saw us, he went nuts…. THATS WHAT WE LIVE FOR… Seeing a pup that came through our home, was loved by us and our dogs…. and greets us so excitedly after not having seen us in a while. We know that the tears (after we adopt out a pup) are all worth it, when they live their best life, but still remember us in a good way. A wagging tail is worth a million bucks. Also, not to forget, the friends we have made along the way… that’s pretty cool”.

What is one of the funniest things your dog or foster has done?

“One of our foster failures (who we adopted in 2016), Scrappy, hates the Amazon Delivery folks. Anytime a package is delivered, and is placed on our side of the fence, Scrappy barks, then gets to the package, pees on it, and then decides to tear up the outside package. We, to this day, do not know why he hates Amazon so much, but it doesn’t stop us from ordering”.

How have you supported SGA? And what does it mean to you?

“How have we supported SGA? Craig and I have volunteered at the Bark Benefits since 2018, fostered, worked on and volunteered at Doug’s Place, donated what we can, procured items for the Bark Benefit, loved on the dogs, promoted the amazing folks at SGA wherever and whenever we can. What does supporting SGA mean to us? We love SGA, being a part of this community, this team means the world to us. Jacintha and Perrin understand rescue so well and they just GET IT, it’s about finding these abused, abandoned, hurt, unwanted pups the PERFECT home. These two have created something really special and to be tiny part of that is simply amazing and fulfilling in so many ways”.

What do you enjoy most about volunteering/fostering with SGA?

“Helping dogs find their new beginning and the people we meet along the way”.

What made you decide to join SGA?

“We had been fostering since November 2013 with another rescue, which we enjoyed, however, when we learned of SGA’s philosophy of allowing people and dogs to go on a 2 week trial, we thought that was the right thing. How awesome, to allow the dogs to see if they want these humans to be their furever, and of course vice versa”.

What is one of the weirdest things your dog or foster has eaten?

“Amazon package with soap in it. Scrappy got a mouth washing with that delivery”.

Let us know anything else, an impactful moment, a funny story, anything:

“We just want to give our biggest thank you to the SGA Community for what they do. We love you guys”.