Foster
In becoming an active part of a foster care program, you are extending the shelter walls and offering the animals a new chance at healthy, happy lives in forever homes. You are helping to avoid unnecessary killing, and you are providing us with valuable information to place animals in the homes best suited for them. Foster parents give shelter animals a place to stay in their home until they are ready for adoption.
As a foster, you agree to provide a safe area of your home (separate from existing pets, at first) for your foster to stay. You also agree to provide food, socialization and transportation to the designated medical facility for medical care and to return your foster pet to the shelter (or discuss other options with the foster/adopter specialists) when he or she is ready for adoption.
Overview
Shelters appreciate your opening your heart and home to one of their shelter’s orphaned dogs. Your generosity will provide young and old, injured, and sick, abused and under socialized dogs a chance to grow or heal before finding their forever homes. The Foster Dog Program plays an integral part in the shelter’s ability to adopt.
A member of the shelter team usually serves as the initial point of contact for the foster family: answering questions, assisting with training issues, connecting the family with any needed supplies and services, and serving as a foster's liaison the Shelter operations. The team member also provides initial orientation for new foster families, and serves as a resource throughout the foster process, beginning with connecting the foster family with a dog in need and culminating in a successful adoption.
Types of Fosters
- Traditional Fostering: This is where you select an animal, and it stays at your house and you help find its forever home.
- Behavior Fostering: These animals need a little more help in learning to become the perfect house` guest. Their areas of opportunity can range anywhere from just needing to learn how to reacclimate to living in a house to maybe they don’t get along with another species of animal and need to be kept separated from them.
- Short Term Fostering: Daytrips, Overnights or set period of times. Come up and take a dog out for lunch, maybe have it spend the night in your house or even just a week or two! Studies have shown any time away from the shelter really helps reduce an animal's stress levels and reduced stress levels helps an animal be more adoptable! This also helps us market the animal (with your photos) and learn more about its home personality.
- Medical Fostering: Animals with medical needs. These animals may be recuperating from surgery, treatments, or any other variety of medical needs.