Foster an Animal
The foster family is a very important part of our organization. It’s through the generous hearts and homes of our volunteers, we ensure that animals who come into our care will never again be alone, hungry, sick, or afraid. All we ask is for you to open your heart and your home to a pet in need of a second chance. A foster home provides a safe haven for a rescued pet and is vital to the socialization and training necessary to help our rescue pets become adoptable thus making it possible to find a forever home with the right family.
Why Foster?
Fostering saves lives! Many shelters still kill perfectly healthy pets because they run out of space. Finding a foster home for them is sometimes the only way to save them. Because shelters and rescues have limited capacity, the number of lives they save depends entirely on the number of fosters willing to open their homes to them.
There are no domestic violence shelters in the area that take in pets. Without fosters we have to say no to a family trying to escape a traumatic, scary, and sometimes life threatening situation. Sometimes without a foster families stay with their abuser OR the pet gets left behind to take the brunt of the abuse.
Fostering is also an important step on a pet’s journey to their forever home or their journey back to their families. Fostering provides pets with the best environment for their wellbeing while waiting for their adopter and allows them to practice forming bonds with humans and potentially other animals. Fostering provides pets with the best possible advocate for their adoption - their foster parent.
What We Need In A Foster Home
The most important requirements are time, patience and compassion. You must be willing to include the pet in family activities, allow the pet to live as a member of your home, provide much human companionship, provide some daily one-on-one time with your rescue, including cuddles, play, and exercise. Remember, you are helping this pet become socialized which makes for a good companion animal, and then easier to find them a home.
We ask that the foster family commit to keep the foster pet until there is an adoption or until returned to their family. The more a foster is moved around, the harder it becomes for that pet.
The foster home will need to administer heartworm preventative, flea and tick preventative and sometimes prescription medications. We count on our foster homes to evaluate temperament and observe behaviors in a variety of situations, and we welcome those updates so we can assess the dog and enhance the description for potential adopters.
