Tamara Braun (ex-Carly, GENERAL HOSPITAL) has a new furry friend, and their story is one that she hopes will encourage others.“I got a text from a girlfriend saying, ‘Hey,would you be willing to foster this little baby who just got hit by a car and has a broken pelvis?’” she shares.

Upon visiting the terrier mix, the actress was taken aback. “He was hooked up to an IV for morphine and not looking so great.”

Informed that the dog would be unattended over the weekend, Braun mustered up the courage to take him home. “It was quite a learning curve,” she says. “He was in pain, needed medicine and couldn’t walk. But I fell in love.”

Open Heart, Open Home
Having decided to keep the pup, whom she named Little, Braun jokingly calls herself a “foster fail.” But she’d previously had a different experience with Frankie, a Lhasa Apso mix whose owner had gone into a nursing facility. Upon first being approached with the idea, “I didn’t think that I could foster and then let the dog go,” Braun says.

But after having him for two different stints while The Real Bark (www.therealbark.org) rescue agency sought permanent placement, Braun decided to be selfless. “I kept thinking, ‘We aren’t the perfect family for him,’” she remembers. “I cried for two days when they did come along, but letting Frankie go was the right thing to do.”

Her Urgent Plea
With the recent string of natural disasters in which so many pets became lost or abandoned, she wanted to get yet another message out. “Donate money, or if you’re local, give your time, your home and your love by fostering or adopting,” she suggests. “And be sure to get your pet micro-chipped so in the event of a disaster, you can be reunited.”

Coming Soon
The year has also been good for Braun’s career. She’ll play an abused woman who protects her daughter in LMN’s Small Town Nightmare (premiering Friday, December 15, at 8 p.m. EST), a conglomerate chief who’s out to control the world in Dead Trigger and a detective determined to help a friend in My Daughter’s Kidnapping. However, the performer still thinks fondly of her Port Charles experience.

“It’s an honor to have been part of GH’s legacy. I’m grateful for my time there and to have been able to play such a dynamic character,” shares the actress (who’ll soon return to the show — see below). “I still have a box full of magazines and scrapbooks put together for me by some wonderful fans. Unfortunately, I suffered some flooding, and there was damage to quite a bit. But I still have some!”

As Soaps In Depth went to press, it was announced that Braun would be returning to GH in an as-yet-undisclosed role.