I promised a friend that I would ask the wise and generous people of Fluther if they might help with couple of problems her daughter, who is about 6 weeks into basic training with the Marines is having. Care to step up to the plate (see details)

Someone needs to have a talk with a financial aid advisor, because student loans and the rules and regulations have definitely changed since you went to school.

Here are the results of my google search on fostering pets. Looks like there definitely is such a thing. Cool!

This is going to be hard for the daughter since she is already away at basic training just because he ability to contact people is going to be limited until she finishes basic. Does her mother have a POA for while she is in training? If so, then her mother could call the lender of the student loan and talk to them, if not, the daughter needs to get in touch with the lender and talk to them specifically about her situation. While I agree that it stinks that they won’t defer for training, there are several other things she might apply for. The military deferment actually only applies to certain loan types as well, so that may also be an issue depending on her loan type. She could ask about the economic hardship (like you mentioned) and also forbearance. If she can get in touch with the lender, she should be able to work something out.

As for the pet fostering, there are several that I’ve heard of, but I’ve never had any experience with them. How would the daughter feel about the dog going to a foster agency? Would the mother be willing to do the leg work to find a place for the dog to go while the daughter finishes her training? Is there anyone else, friend or family, that could take the dog in?

Unfortunately, it sounds like your friend and her daughter are getting a crash course in some of the different ways a member of the military needs to be prepared for things when they go into training or any other situation where they can’t take care of things on their own. I hope they can get everything worked out.

Thanks @augustlan and @augustlan That’s the basic problem, the mom is trying to take care of all this stuff for her daughter because of the limited amount of contact with the outside world she can have while she is in basic training but I will email her the link to this question and see if the info helps. Thank again.

This is an organization that takes care of pets of deployed soldiers. They may be able to help in this situation, too.

I work for a boarding kennel. Now boarding kennels are all different for different people but we do do something for military employs. Normally we charge $36 a night but we had a dog boarding for 19 mounts while the farther was deployed. Instead of the normal price we only charged $10 a night and we provide him with food. You could call around local kennels and ask it is worth a shot. Good luck.