Hallmark's Cindy Busby Shares How Fostering Rescue Dogs Kept Her Busy in Quarantine

When the coronavirus pandemic reached the U.S. and stay at home orders swept the nation, many of us found ourselves adjusting to a new normal. For our friends from our favorite TV network, Hallmark, that meant that production on new movies and episodes of TV series came to a sudden halt. After a year of what seemed like back to back projects that always had her on the move, Hallmark star, Cindy Busby, found herself hunkering down at home with her partner Chris. As it turns out, she’s spent her unexpected down time like many of us have. “I definitely miss working but I know this too shall pass and I believe things will come around again and, in the meantime, I’ve just been doing a lot of home renovations. I’ve painted things in the house. I’ve redone pieces of furniture,” Busby told Southern Living in a recent phone call.

She’s also spent some of quarantine giving back to one of her favorite charities, Best Friend’s Animal Society. “My partner Chris and I, we also fostered two dogs for three weeks. I love animals so much and it was just a really nice way to give back and for us to keep busy. And animals have endless amounts of love and I just feel like they bring such an incredible energy into the home,” she said. Busby has been volunteering with the group for about a year now. In between projects she would walk dogs, help to keep kennels clean, but as lockdown orders were issued, the organization began placing all of the animals into foster homes. Busby and her partner volunteered to take in a brother sister pair of pups. “They were twelve years old and they were just the best. I just love them so much and I would have loved to have kept them but two dogs for us is a little bit too much and I would never want to separate a brother and a sister,” she said, adding that when the time is right, she fully plans to give a pup a forever home. “I just felt like fostering was the next best thing to adopting.”

Much like her co-star in Unleashing Mr. Darcy, Ryan Paevey, Busby’s love of animals often comes across on screen. That is certainly the case in her latest Hallmark movie, Love in the Forecast, premiering this Saturday. June 13, 9PM EST. Busby plays an ambitious, up and coming TV meteorologist, focused on her career and not on love when she meets her handsome next door neighbor, played by Christopher Russell, and his adorable dog. While romance blooms between Busby and Russell, it’s clear from Busby’s social media, Kevin the Dog won her heart in real life.

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“Working with dogs is my favorite,” she told us. Be sure to check out Busby, Russell, and Kevin the Dog this Saturday night, June 13, 9PM EST.