Is Fostering right for my family??
Here are some high level details about our program as our Foster’s have a lot of responsibility in the care of their animal. This does not change with the current circumstances.
Here is a short list of the primary responsibilities of a JRs Foster:
- Attend training (2 1/2 hrs typically) all teens and adults in household must attend, these are held online.
- After training a virtual home visit with a seasoned foster to talk thru remaining questions and to walk through the physical space, looking for areas that may result in damage to your belongs or potentially harm a dog
- Upon approval, pickup a foster at the facility in West Allis (along with all the supplies that will be provided such as food, medication, crate, toys, etc)
- Administer medication and record it on our software system (very important)
- Advertise, advertise, advertise- our main objective is to get the pups into their furever home as fast as we can. This involves updating their descriptions visible on our website, Facebook and other social media sites.
- Work on basic training as most of the animals rescued have never been in a home, felt a loving touch, and are often flight risks. This involves crate training and house training. (This sometimes involves re-organizing things in the home to accommodate accidents as well as practicing patience)
- Provide transportation to the office or vet when medical tasks are needed.
- Commitment to keep your foster until adopted. It is very important that we minimize the amount of disruption in our pup’s lives. When you agree to foster with us you agree that you are willing and able to keep this dog in your home “for the duration”. Depending on the dog, this may be 2 weeks or it may be 2 months or longer. Please be sure that when your life returns to normal (post Covid) that you will be able to remain their foster until they are adopted.
- Conduct meets with adopters. JRs does require in-person meeting for all members of the adopting family to visit the dog at the foster’s home. You need to be comfortable with potential adopters coming to your home and visiting with the dog while you are observing (meets can be done outdoors). Please ensure that you are not a high risk vulnerable person or have someone in your household who may be prone to exposure due to their profession.
- Be informed that the adoption path and the foster path at JRs are completely separate and do not coincide. If interested in adopting it is a separate application process and Foster’s cannot adopt their own first 3 fosters
- MOST important-vigilant monitoring of your foster for health and wellness. Transitioning to a new place is hard on dogs, and the distress is often physical symptoms in the form of diarrhea, worms, lack of appetite etc. Your quick identification of health issues can make a difference in their survival.
If it feels like this might be more responsibility and a longer commitment than you were anticipating, no worries!! We have other critical volunteer opportunities at this time.
- Computer entry for the computer savvy - help get applicants entered into our system.
- Make some phone calls- background, landlord and vet checks.
- Adopter home visits via Skype or Facetime. Because of the concerns with social interactions we are doing home visits virtually (as well as in person) and we’d love to have some virtual comfortable people help with the visits (We do have training for this available)