FOSTERING

Fostering - what is it?

If you would like to foster a dog answer these questions in an email us at animaladvocates@telus.net (Foster homes must be on the North Shore because that is where our vet and trainer is. Please offer to foster anyway, and we will send your application to many other very worthy dog rescue groups.)

  • 1. Your name and address and telephone numbers
  • 2. Tell us all about yourself and family
  • 3. How good your fence is
  • 4. What your experience with dogs has been
  • 5. How long the dog would be alone
  • 6. If you would take the dog to training classes (AAS pays)
  • 7. How much free-running exercise and play with other dogs the dog would get at off-leash parks
  • 8. Is there a place nearby where dogs can swim (only for the dogs that we know love water)
  • 9. Where the dog be when you are not at home
  • 10. Where the dog would sleep
  • Please answer all the questions.

  • This is also important for you to read:

The Family Circle

Dogs are the most gregarious creatures. In nature they would stay with their families their whole lives, and they would never be alone. They would not eat, sleep, play, or work alone. Animal Advocates knows a dog would rather be beaten and starved than isolated.

Dogs do not like to be outside when their family is inside — there's nothing to do in the yard. Nor are they happy sleeping in a dog house or a laundry room or a basement. They know that other members of their family don't sleep in these places, and it makes them feel baffled, rejected, and sad.

They take so little, and give so much, and the least we can do for them is to be the family we took them away from. Dogs up to middle age, even small dogs, need lots of running and socializing. And just like us, they need lots of love, not too much criticism, good food, a warm bed, and an assured place in the family circle.

  • It's a way you can help a needy dog awaiting the stable, gentle, loving, home that all dogs deserve.
  • It's a great lesson in compassion for kids.
  • It's also a way to find out if you're ready for a dog yet, or if a particular dog is happy in your home.
  • We pay the vet bills and you pay the food bills.
  • Don't worry - you'll never be stuck with a dog you can't keep - we'll take back the dog.
  • Fostering can be anywhere from a few weeks to many months, it depends on the dog's recovery and adoptability.
  • Fostering can only be done successfully by dog-wise people.
  • There must be a safe fenced yard and the dog must be exercised and socialized by being taken to off-leash parks.
  • AAS only permits crating for surgery recovery or for travel, not for training. People coped and trained dogs without crates before the advent of crates. Happy pups become happy dogs and no pup is happy alone in a crate.
  • Dogs must never be in a yard unattended: they bark, dig, cry, are isolated and lonely , can run away and be hit by a car, and stolen. AAS uses foster families so that our dogs know what it is to be a member of a family, and family members are not put out into the yard or locked in a bathroom or a laundry room or the basement.
  • A dog alone is a lonely dog. There must be an "at home" person. And dogs that have just lost everything they knew and loved especially need the reassurance of not being alone. Some of our dogs do not do well alone at all at first, and four hours alone is the maximum that dog behaviourists say a normal dog can handle. Puppies cannot be alone for more than two hours.

 

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