Your Role as a Dusty Paws Foster Carer
As a Dusty Paws foster carer, you play a vital role in helping dogs find their forever homes. Your dedication provides a crucial stepping stone for these animals.

Here's what's involved:
Provide a Safe and Secure Temporary Home: Your primary responsibility is to offer a safe and nurturing environment for your foster dog until they are adopted.

Basic Training:
We ask that you provide basic training, which includes, but is not limited to, commands like "sit," "stay," and "come." It also involves discouraging jumping up on people and working on "place" or crate training.

Vet visits:
You'll be responsible for conducting meet and greets with potential owners. Please refer to our meet and greet guide for detailed instructions.

Puppy Vaccinations:
Just like us humans, it's important for dogs to get vaccinated to protect them from certain diseases. A typical vaccination schedule starts when your puppy is 6−8 weeks old; their second injection is at 10−12 weeks and their third and final ‘booster' is at 14−16 weeks. This can vary depending on your location and the type of vaccine your vet uses. One thing to be aware of is that vaccinations can take up to 2 weeks to have their full effect, so unless your vet has advised otherwise, avoid taking your puppy out and about, particularly to dog parks, beaches, and other dog hotspots until 2 weeks after they have had their final vaccination. Following this guideline will help ensure they're properly protected from diseases such as canine parvovirus, canine distemper virus, infectious canine hepatitis, and infectious canine tracheobronchitis (kennel cough).

Socialisation:
Socialising your foster dog is incredibly important.  If you encounter any difficulties with this, please don't hesitate to reach out to one of our team members for assistance.

Create a Profile and Provide Photos:
Once your foster dog is ready for adoption, you'll need to prepare a profile and supply appealing photos to help them find a new family.

Seek Advice When Needed:
We're here to support you! Please feel free to reach out for advice whenever you need it.

Facilitate Meet and Greets:
You'll be responsible for conducting meet and greets with potential owners. Please refer to our meet and greet guide for detailed instructions.

Provide Mental and Physical Stimulation:
Ensure your foster dog receives adequate mental and physical stimulation to keep them happy and healthy.

Maintain Dog Names:
Dog names are to remain the same unless you receive specific instructions from the committee.

 

Additional Information for Foster Carers
Once you've been approved as a foster carer, you'll be added to our private Dusty Paws foster carer group on Facebook and provided with a dedicated support chat for communication.

We offer a two-week trial period for new owners, so it's essential that we have each new dog in our care for at least that long. This timeframe allows us to address any behavioural issues and ensure they are fully vetted. Please note that some dogs may require more time before they are ready for adoption.

We understand that fostering can be demanding, and everyone needs a break sometimes. There's absolutely no shame in asking for one if you need to take some time off from fostering.

Should you decide to adopt your foster dog, we require that you take a six-month break from fostering before taking on another foster dog.

Dusty Paws Dog Rescue are not liable to Damages a foster dog may cause.

By accepting this you acknowledge that you are 18 years or older and if you become a foster carer with Dusty Paws Dog Rescue, you will be responsible for the safety and wellbeing of the dog while in your care. Do you agree to let us know at once should you have any problems with your foster animal/s so we can assist you by contacting Dusty Paws Dog on your support chat.

Confidentiality & Disclosure
In the course of your volunteer duties with Dusty Paws Dog Rescue, personal and private information will be disclosed to you. This is necessary to provide services to our fostered animals and clients. Information could include details about:

Clients, including their names;  
Other volunteers, their contact details or where they live (which can’t be shared without their prior consent); and
Dusty Paws Dog Rescue business, such as financial details and contracts.
All information concerning clients and volunteers, both past and present, is confidential. Business data, including financial details about service providers and the records of Dusty Paws Dog Rescue are also confidential.

You are free to talk about Dusty Paws Dog Rescue, our work and your role/s, but you are not permitted to disclose confidential details to other people. Dusty Paws Dog Rescue expects you to respect the privacy of others and to maintain personal and financial information as confidential.

Information may not be shared or released without appropriate authorization from the Committee. However, there may be specific instances where information may be shared with another volunteer in Dusty Paws Dog Rescue when the disclosure relates to performing your duties as a volunteer.

Failure to maintain confidentiality is a serious betrayal of trust which may result in corrective action and potentially termination of your involvement with Dusty Paws Dog Rescue. This policy is intended to protect you as well as Dusty Paws Dog Rescue, as violations of this policy may result in personal liability.