I founded and started a herding-sporting-working dog rescue (501C3 in 2012) in 2010 and have saved hundreds of great dogs. I have associations in my area with other rescues and we all have one wish, more reliable fosters for the dogs. We could save so many more. Currently, I try not to have more than 10 rescues on my 7 acres but a few good foster people would make a world of difference to homeless pets. My question; What are the deal-breakers that prevent people from fostering? What can we do to interest people in fostering a dog? We pay for vetting and food and can provide kennels for potty training.
3 Likes
First of all, you are amazing! I know lots of my friends who foster dogs and I have so much respect for them. I for one, have never fostered and unfortunately never plan on doing so.
Its more of a personal choice for myself after so many bad incidences on foster dogs while I was growing up. My aunt did a lot of fostering for different rescues. I have been attacked and bit by almost all of them and most of them needed to be put down. It kind of scarred me for life and I have never adopted or rescued a dog because of all of these bad experiences. I have always purchased a puppy from a reputable breeder and I do a lot of research before purchasing. That is just me though and I can see the need and love when people adopt, rescue and foster. It is something that breaks my heart as I know so many dogs are good and are perfect to foster and re home. I just always have this feeling in the back of my mind and I don’t think it would be fair to the dog if I were to ever get one.
4 Likes
For me it would be impossible because I just could not ever give up a dog after it was in my care as mine for any length of time. Just not an option.
3 Likes
We used to foster, but we ended up keeping too many of them.
We DO adopt from our local shelter.
1 Like
I did fostering for years & it very rarely turned out well for the dog. They typically had too many behavioral issues that were beyond fixing and/or made them dangerous dogs for the unassuming.
Granted, I took in the harder cases because I did have the means to safely care for them & work with them until it was determined if they were beyond help or not.
Now…. I don’t think I’d do fostering again.
Partly because the lack of proper setup to keep a foster dog safely separated from our other dogs.
Another issue is the lack of knowledge of their past behavior/issues.
I wouldn’t want to bring in a dog that may potentially have aggression issues towards people or other animals. I won’t take a chance on either my family or pets getting bit.
4 Likes
I have thought about fostering.
My hesitation is like the others listed above, as well as having an intact female (who I do not breed, I am just scared to lose her on the table during the spay). And she is super submissive and not a fan of other dogs.
Perhaps when she is no longer with us, I can open my home to foster, but I know I would just foster fail.
1 Like
For me it’s about wanting to keep a peaceful, stable environment for my current dogs.
6 Likes
If I had the desire and ability to care for (time and energy) another dog, I think I would get another dog over fostering.
1 Like
I have been involved in fostering with a sporting breed-specific rescue, one of which we ended up adopting (turned out that this dog was a litter mate of my existing dog’s father, and a first cousin of my dog’s mother!). He had been abused (somewhat from ignorance on the part of his original owners IMO), and we had to work through a few challenges, but he eventually became a great, reliable dog.
Another one (also through this breed-specific rescue), we only fostered for a very short time before he was adopted by a couple who kept him the rest of his life (and even wrote a poem about him!). He snapped upon arrival, which turned out to be due to an ear infection, which was promptly seen by a veterinarian and treated asap, but that episode could easily have put off someone else.
However, in these cases, we paid all expenses, including for the first one, which since we kept him for ourselves that was fine. We paid to have the second one flown from the shelter in Alaska where he was located. When he was adopted and flown cross-country to his forever home, and I found out that expense was covered by the rescue, I asked that we be reimbursed for the cost of the AK flight. The rescue didn’t seem too happy about that, but did pay us back.
For us, we feel as though we have done our bit (we’ve also owned other shelter dogs in the past), and at this stage of our lives (older), we wanted a smaller dog from a reputable breeder, rather than continue to foster.
As far as what could encourage fostering, I’d say have very realistic evaluations of the dogs as to their temperament and possible issues – every dog is not a suitable candidate, IMO, unfortunately, and also be fair and pro-active about paying covered expenses.
Since behavioral issues seem to be a common refrain in dogs requiring fostering, perhaps offering training and socialization classes would encourage people to take the plunge.
2 Likes
I had a dog kill two of my cats a while back, so I cannot even think about fostering a dog before evaluation. And now I have 1 dog and 3 cats in a small house. I do get rescue dogs, but I want to know they are safe.
1 Like
I like to think I may try fostering again (my family fostered several growing up and Mom currently has a long term foster she is keeping for a young lady who was deployed) but my last experience was terrible.
The organization didn’t listen to my requests for a non pit bull mix (which are the majority I know but they just do not work with my existing pets who will always have priority over fosters), lied about the dog’s health (he came to me with kennel cough which then transmitted to my pets - all of which were treated on my own dime), they refused to treat him for the kennel cough and bite wound that they also lied about until I threatened to dump him at a different org (weeks later), provided 0 food for him, ducked me constantly until after he was (allegedly) adopted and then harassed me for weeks to foster or donate again even after me laying into them for all the BS (had to threaten to blast them on SM).
We felt terrible for the dog who was sweet but 100% a pit mix and not as described and the health risk that it poised to my existing pets infuriated me to no end (I would have been happy to quarantine the foster if they had been truthful). We even sponsored his adoption fee with the only request we made, outside of wanting his health taken care of, being to know when he was adopted and give our contact info to the adopters so they could chose to let us know where he went (or not) and they did not let us know when he was adopted.
It was incredibly stressful and frustrating (and expensive) which makes me reticent to EVER do it again. Sucks because I want to help the dogs but am not willing to sacrifice my existing pets comfort in their own home/ health to do so.
2 Likes
I’ve had 4 sporting dogs over the last 20 years and they are a handful. I love them because they keep me active, both mentally and physically. You are a saint for welcoming so many of them into your home. I suspect many of them ended up there because their first homes were not prepared for the tremendous commitment required to keep a sporting dog engaged and out of trouble.
2 Likes
We have fostered two dogs and one horse. The two dogs’ ashes are upstairs in my bedroom. The horse is probably snoozing out in the barn as I type.
I am a three time foster fail. And there’s only so much room in the inn. I wish it weren’t this way, but …
2 Likes
Because everyone ends up keeping their fosters! 
There are three foster fails sleeping in my living room right now. 
3 Likes
I fostered when I was in college.
They refused to pay for anything, and when I was on a shoestring budget that was really hard for me.
They kept giving me the hard cases, problem dogs. It was not a problem for me to handle them, but they all needed to go to experienced homes. Instead they would adopt them out to entirely unsuitable people, who would inevitably return the dog, who would end back up with me with some new behaviors to resolve.
They would also give me dogs that weren’t doing well in other foster care. One in particular, in the 8 months she had been in foster care had never been walked on a leash because “she didn’t like it”. Who is going to adopt a dog that starts screaming and doing an alligator roll every time they felt pressure on a collar? Why was the adoption agency not following up on the dog’s progress or lack thereof?
Just all around a S-show. I have it in my head that I would like to foster mega-seniors someday, because I just die inside thinking of them stuck in a crate, old and confused. My husband does not have the heart to do it though, so it’s on a forever back-burner.
3 Likes
I don’t think I could foster because I get very attached very quickly, and it would just break my heart to give one up. I couldn’t right now anyway, as we have three dogs, a cat, and a horse, and we really don’t have the space. Our dogs and cat were all rescues, one is a foster fail.
2 Likes
This kind of stuff just makes me so upset. Fosters should be given healthy, easy, uncomplicated dogs, unless they specify otherwise. When I volunteered for other groups, they did this kind of stuff and all it did was ruin the experience for fosters, ruin the rescues reputation and confuse the dog. I’m sorry this happened to you but so many rescues are run by people with no business acumen. This same type of practice happened to me when I first started out as a rescue. Many shelters were misrepresenting dogs and sending me problem dogs, unsafe dogs because they wanted to see the dogs leave as live releases. I now only partner with shelter groups with impeccable reputations.
2 Likes
You are 100% correct. People see cattle dogs, border collies etc, on TV and go buy a puppy. Then when they are 6-8 months old, owners are overwhelmed and dump them in shelters. So many of these people don’t realize herders need jobs, purpose, exercise and mental stimulation. Living in a crate, in an apartment just isn’t going to work.
So true about these dogs. I have stopped rescuing known biters, they are too much of a danger to adopters and there are way too many good minded dogs in shelters to spend so much time trying to change an aggressive dog. I did have a family who wanted to “get rid of” an adult Aussie female. They said she was aggressive and dangerous to their very young children. I visited the dog and thought I could just adopt her to a couple with no problem but honestly, she just didnt behave like a dog with issues. So, while she was with me, I noticed that if I touched her around her tail she would growl. I just did not view this girl as dangerous so I was quite surprised to see her growl. Long story short, her hind quarters had not been brushed in a long time and her fur was so very matted all the way across her vulva and the pee and hair had rubbed a raw oozing sore on her hind end, under the matted areas. Once we cleared up that injury, she was sooooo happy and now lives with a better family.
4 Likes
Not only was that unprofessional, it was a dangerous thing to do, to you, and your personal pets. I try to not be too hard on pitbulls because there are many that are good ones. however, if they come from the shelter, you’re playing Russian Roulette. In our 14 years we have rescued 4 of them, which were represented as great dogs. Every single one was a disaster, some cost me a lot of vet bills too but all 4 of them were killers. It took about 2 weeks for them to show their true nature but once they were calm, they were always picking a fight. Never ever again.
