In November last year, my fiance and I started fostering for a rescue group in Melbourne. Our first foster was very overweight when he came into care, so his weight loss as well as general health improvements became a talking point among various people who met him. In talking to people about him, it became apparent that many people have no idea that people can and do foster animals, and are often quite interested in doing it themselves. Unless you spend too many waking hours worrying about animal welfare related things like me, and end up basing every social interaction around dogs, you may not have any reason to come across animal welfare or rescue groups. This is where I come in, with this post about fostering!
Many animal rescues run as foster care networks, or volunteers who take animals into their homes and look after them until they are ready to be put up for adoption, and find a home. Some pounds also have foster carers, however the numbers and the size of the foster program varies significantly; some do not use foster carers at all, and others use them only for the youngest puppies and kittens.
There are no hard and fast rules around fostering, or what it involves and requires, as the specifics of the arrangement will be determined by the particular rescue group or organisation involved. Like anything, some groups are run like well oiled machines, and others are run in a very ad-hoc, haphazard way. Note that the size of the group is not an indication of how well it is run – a group with lots of animals in its care or a revolving door of foster carers is not necessarily the best RUN group, or the one that you want to volunteer with.
This post is intended to give an overview of what fostering is all about, and what to think and ask about if you are interested in doing it yourself.
What is fostering?
At the most basic level, fostering is providing temporary care for an animal in need. Fostering a dog involves bringing the dog into your own home and caring for it like it was your own dog until it finds a home. In most cases, the dog or cat will be listed on the rescue’s website and PetRescue.com.au, and will live with you until the right applicant comes along and adopts him/her. Some organisations have set periods for foster care, but most will have animals in care for as long as it takes for them to be adopted. Nobody can tell you exactly how long this will be, unfortunately!
For instance, the Greyhound Adoption Program (GAP) of Greyhound Racing Victoria run a foster care program whereby Greyhounds live in a number of homes for short 2 week periods, to get them used to life in a house, as opposed to kennels. Most private rescues do not own or use kennels, pounds or other holding facilities, and don’t have a physical location or base. The dogs and cats remain in foster care for days, weeks or months – depending on how long it takes. Some dogs are adopted almost immediately, whereas others may take longer; nobody can ever tell, it depends entirely on the dog, its needs, and how long it takes for them to be found and adopted by the people who eventually do adopt them.
The group that I foster for take on many dogs needing vet treatment, or time to recover from cruelty and neglect – in this case, they may be in foster care for months before they are ready to be adopted. Some animals will need to be desexed, so will need to spend some time recovering from their surgery before being adopted. Others come into care healthy and happy, and can be put up for adoption immediately. These ones just need a home to live in until the right ‘forever’ home comes along.
The particular arrangements vary from group to group, but generally, a foster family/person will take the animal into their home and look after it. The animal remains owned by the rescue organisation, group or pound, and that organisation is ultimately responsible for the animal. Foster carers don’t own the animals in their care, but provide temporary care – sometimes more temporary than others.
What do foster carers do?
In a nutshell, foster carers look after their foster animals as if they were one of their own. My foster dog is treated like one of my dogs – he gets the same food, love, affection and training as my two little dogs. When people ask me how many dogs I have, I say “three.. well, two.. two plus one.. two and a foster.” I’m still not quite sure what the right thing to say is, and a great many people I know are thoroughly confused at how many dogs I have and how my life operates. It’s great!
The 'before' pic - day 1 in foster care
The nuts and bolts – money, decisions and how it all works
In a nutshell, foster dogs and cats are officially ‘owned’ by the rescue organisation, and looked after by their foster carer. The way the arrangement works in practice, including who pays for what, varies.
In some organisations, carers will pay for all food, bedding, collars, medication etc that the animal will need or use while in foster care. Other organisations provide all food, medication and accessories that an animal will need. Some organisations have relationships with particular vet surgeries, and others are happy for foster carers to use their own local vet and reimburse the carer afterwards. Each organisation has its own way of doing things. Some organisations will arrange for potential adopters to meet the foster dog in its foster home, while others will have foster carers take the foster dog to meet the potential adopter in the adopter’s home. Some groups have ‘trial periods’ for adopters, and others don’t.
To provide a real example, the organisation that I foster for has an association with two particular vets who look after the care and welfare of all of the group’s animals. As soon as an animal comes into the care of my group, they are given a thorough vet check, and any procedures required at that time or later down the track are provided by that vet surgery. There are procedures in place for what to do if a dog needs emergency or out of hours care, and I know that help from the head of the rescue organisation is a phone call away. All vet work and medication is paid for by the rescue group – I look after the dog as if he were mine, take him to the vet when he needs to go, and pick up his medication – but the group takes care of the financials.
I pay for his food and provide him with bedding and toys, but am welcome to take any food or items that are donated to the group. My personal approach is to just provide for my foster dog like I would for my other two dogs, so I am happy to buy a bit of extra food and have extra beds lying around. This works for us. If I wasn’t open to sharing my home and life with another dog, or provide the same level of care, attention and love that I provide to my own dogs, I wouldn’t be doing this. So they all eat better than most people I know, and live a pretty damn good life!
The 'after' photo - all ready for his new home
But how do you give the dog away?
I feel like a bit of a fraud writing this section, because so far, I’ve only parted with one foster dog. That was Snow the Greyhound, back in 2010. The little dog I am fostering at the moment is just perfect, and when he leaves I will be distraught – that much I know. The two nights that he has been away from us in the time we’ve had him (since mid-November 2012), the house has been eerily quiet. Strange, since this dog is one of the calmest, quietest little things I’ve ever seen, and spends 90% of his life sleeping upstairs. When he leaves, I’m sure it will be bittersweet – he’s not leaving until the perfect home comes along, that may be in a day or a year. The home he eventually goes to will be fantastic though (he’s not going to anyone that is anything less!) and I don’t have the monopoly on loving and caring for him. I love him – I am completely in love with him, actually – but I know that someone else will be able to love him too.
It would be so, so easy to keep him. He fits in perfectly with our house, and is a gem to look after. But if we kept him, there’d be no more fostering, and there are so many other little dogs that need a place to rest up for a while.
Nobody finds it easy to give a dog away, but fostering is not about the foster carer. It’s about helping dogs who need it get a bit of a break from the pound environment, or giving dogs who would otherwise not have a chance, to have a chance at a new life.
Not everybody is cut out for it, and some people “fail” at their first attempt, keeping their first foster dog! Any dog that finds a loving home is a lucky dog, but the world needs more carers who can put aside their own emotions and attachment for the sake of the bigger picture.
Fostering is also a great way to ease yourself into pet ownership, or get to live with an animal if you’re unable to commit to one for life. If you’re only in the country or state for a few months or years and can’t commit to pet ownership for life, fostering might just be perfect!
One of the reasons I first wanted to foster was to see whether I could actually be a good dog owner. Wanting a dog is one thing, having one and actually meeting all its needs properly is quite another. I had moved out of home some years prior and lived in sharehouses ever since, not having to get home from work at any particular time, or plan around anything other than myself. I knew it would be a big change, needing to get home as soon after work as possible to look after the dog and adjust my schedule and routine. The day I picked up Snow the Greyhound my life changed dramatically, and I haven’t looked back.
Want to start fostering? What to look for and what to avoid
If you’re thinking about fostering, make sure you do your research. Investigate rescue areas in your area and how they operate, the dogs they take on, who their carers are, and how it all works. Be prepared to ask lots of questions and be asked lots of questions. The main things to check for are clear arrangements around liability, responsibility, and who is responsible for what.
Who actually owns the dog? What happens if the dog gets out? What happens if the dog becomes sick or injured while in your care? Who pays for the vet? How is payment arranged? Who communicates with potential adopters, and who has final say over who adopts the dog? What if something unforeseen happens and you can no longer look after the dog? These are some questions that you need to be able to answer, and that the group must also be able to answer.
You want to make sure that you are working with a group that knows what they are doing and has dotted their ‘I’s and crossed their ‘T’s. Remember, if you are bringing a strange dog into your home, you want to make sure that you and your pets are safe, and there is support for you should anything go wrong. In most cases it will probably be smooth sailing, but inevitably there are sometimes problems.
Some of the things I know of include foster carers not being reimbursed for vet treatment, foster animals doing damage to foster families’ property, foster carers struggling with animals they are unable to adequately care for. Generally, these come down to inadequate support provided by the group, to the carer. Some dogs will require training or behavioural assessments – who organises, authorises and pays for this?
If you contact a rescue group to express interest in fostering and they thrust a dog at you and ask no questions, run a mile. If you’re not asked numerous questions and provided with adequate information to satisfy the most basic enquiries (ie, who pays for what, what the adoption process is, who owns the dog), this is not a group you want to support. There are lots of brilliant rescues who know what they are doing and are experienced, dedicated and most importantly, VALUE their carers. There are unfortunately many groups popping up with the best intentions but without the experience or understanding of rescue behind them. Don’t let yourself get caught up in somebody else’s teething problems.
Speak to other carers, or people who have cared for them in the past. Make sure you are clear in your own mind about the kind of dogs that you are really willing and able to take on – if you have only ever owned geriatric little white fluffies, is an adolescent Bull Arab that has found itself in the pound because it regularly clears 7 foot fences going to be the right dog for you? It may be! But be honest with yourself, and with the rescue group. If you’ve never owned a puppy before and are not sure about toilet training, let them know, ask for help, and keep the lines of communication open.
Anything else?
If you’ve got any questions or would like some frank and honest advice, leave a comment or send me an email – I’m more than happy to have a chat.