Foster Care Program

The HSOP’s Foster Care Program is designed to provide temporary homes for pets that are not immediately ready for adoption. Foster volunteers open their homes to animals and provide them with the love and care that they need in order to be ready to find a new forever home of their own. Often foster volunteers help to care for kittens who are too young to be vaccinated and just need a few weeks of TLC to ready them for adoption.

Volunteer foster homes provide a safe place for foster animals to stay, nutritious food, socialization and health care to their animal guests. This important program enables us to save the lives of animals that might otherwise have to be euthanzied. Before taking on the responsibility and commitment of becoming a foster care volunteer, you should fully understand what it means and will entail to be a foster. While we along with our current foster parents believe that fostering is fun, rewarding work, it also requires a certain amount of time, energy and a big heart.

Opportunities to Foster

The Humane Society needs loving foster homes for the following types of pets:

• Pregnant cats and dogs-need foster homes from pregnancy until their offspring are 8 weeks old
• Cats of all ages
• Dogs of all ages
• Special needs pets
• Pets waiting for transport to other rescue organizations

While our Staff works hard to make our shelter a clean and healthy environment, fighting illness is an ongoing battle in a shelter environment. Fostering, especially young puppies and kittens, is one way to help keep our animals as healthy as possible. In foster homes they are not exposed to the diseases that can so easily enter our shelter with the next incoming animal.

By fostering you are not only saving the life of your foster pet, but you also help us make room for another animal at the shelter. Fostering can greatly reduce the number of animals euthanized at the Humane Society.

How does fostering work

Fostering a pet is quite simple–it begins when you volunteer to care for a homeless pet in your home. You take the pet home from the shelter and provide love, nourishment and proper veterinary care until it finds a forever home, either through shelter contacts or adopt-a-thons. Foster times vary from a few days to a few months-it depends on the type of pet.

So you want to foster

We really recommend you read the following information:
Becoming a Foster Parent
Fostering Frequently Asked Questions
Foster Care Handbook

If after all that you’re still interested (hope we haven’t scared you off) please complete a Volunteer Application and drop it off or fax it to the shelter for processing. You’ll then be contacted for scheduling your orientation session.