What does fostering a pet involve?
When you foster, you agree to take a homeless dog into your home and give him or her love, care and attention, either for a predetermined period of time or until the pet is adopted. This includes taking your foster to and from medical appointments, adoption events, and potential meet and greets. Fostering an animal (including litters of puppies) is a huge commitment. Please do not apply unless you are truly committed to saving a life.
This is not normally a “foster-to-adopt” program. Fostering is intended to provide temporary care to an animal. We work hard to make sure each animal is adopted into the most compatible home and acknowledge that sometimes it is their foster home. You will be notified if an animal is available for adoption by “foster first” 14 days after it’s arrival. If you are interested in adopting your foster animal you must contact the volunteer coordinator as soon as possible since foster parents do not always have the first right to adopt. If the animal does not have any interested adopters on intake and the foster expresses interest in adopting, the foster parent may submit an adoption application to potentially adopt the animal.
We take a lot of time and pride in training our foster families how to care for each animal. Providing you with not only a pediatric foster experience but educational materials and an open forum (via Facebook) to ask questions and gather support and information from other experienced fosters families.
Our volunteer officers have over 40 years of combined experience in shelter medicine, pediatric critical care, behavioral training, veterinary technician, and professional grooming.
Our program is geared towards dedicated like-minded others.
Fostering an animal is a minimum 21 day commitment.
Why do adoption groups need foster homes?
There are many reasons a pet might need foster care. Some of the most common include:
- A rescue group doesn’t have a physical shelter and depends on foster homes to care for dogs until suitable homes are found.
- A puppy is too young to be adopted and needs a safe place to stay until he or she is old enough to go to a forever home.
- An animal is recovering from surgery, illness or injury and needs a safe place to recuperate.
- An animal is showing signs of stress such as pacing or hiding in the shelter.
- An animal has not lived in a home before or has not had much contact with people and needs to be socialized.
- The shelter is running out of room for adoptable dogs.
Why should I foster?
Fostering an animal is one of the most rewarding experiences you can have (other than adopting, of course). By taking an animal in need temporarily into your home you’re:
- freeing up a spot so the shelter or rescue can take in another animal.
- giving your foster pet the time he needs to be ready for adoption.
- helping the shelter or rescue learn more about the dog so (s)he can end up in the best home possible.
- socializing the animal to a home environment and possibly getting him used to being around other pets and different types of people.
How do I sign up to foster?
- Complete a foster parent application and subsequent home visit
- Agree to and sign the foster waiver
- Please note that this is a significant commitment and a challenging responsibility. Those that wish to volunteer are expected to provide a safe and nurturing home with a minimum commitment of 3 weeks.