FOSTERING – WHY?

ONE SIMPLE TRUTH… BECAUSE IT SAVES LIVES…

What follows is a first-hand account of fostering…

Most of what we read about rescue tends to arrive polished… shaped into something easy to take in, easy to scroll past. But behind it, there are people holding the weight of it in real time. Ann Parker is one of those people… the driving force behind PAWS and Promises across its newsletter, website, and Facebook page. What follows is her voice, kept close to how it was first told… where fostering isn’t an idea, but a daily decision to make space for a life that needs it.

Dominus (Editor)

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Fosters are a very rare thing, like hen’s teeth; they are few and far between, and there are not enough of them. Most of us who foster learn the downsides early on….

I am a proud foster; I save lives, and I am a failed foster more than once, too, but I still foster, because I can and because I know it makes a difference.

Yes, it might only have been for a couple of weeks…to start with, but 4, 5, 6, 7 or more months later, you still have the foster.

The big dogs are tougher. If the rescue doesn’t have a large social media reach or a dedicated following, then the cute puppy stage will be over, and a big dog becomes more difficult to find a perfect home for.

Puppies are a whole ‘nother challenge… cute, but messy, and so much floor mopping – best only to foster puppies if you have tiled floors and no carpets and access to endless supplies of black bags, puppy pads and bleach…

BUT…

If you take in a foster, you take in a life, and create a space for another life to be saved.

Even if it takes some time, if you trust the rescue you are working with, you know they will find that happy forever after for your foster. And sometimes, there are failed fosters, who realise that the bundle they took in, scared, dirty, full of fleas and worms, but safely off the streets is the bundle they want in their lives forever… watching them grow in confidence, be happy and eager to learn, and fitting right in with their lifestyle and hopefully, they have just one more space in their home for another foster that they don’t keep, but has its own happy forever after elsewhere.

Nothing, or pretty much nothing, prepares you to pick up a rescue dog, whether it is a puppy (or two), a young rescue or an adult and bring it home, or, for a really tough challenge, an older rescue with all its fear built in, or a rescue in palliative care, so you know how that one ends…

Watch these fosters try to process what is happening to them, hearing kind words, gentle actions (and sometimes, it takes weeks before soft words or considered actions are even understood), watching this bundle of fear turn from being scared of everything, to greeting you with a waggy tail one morning.. then you know… You understand… a corner has been turned, and there is hope and progress and time to think about that happy forever after.

Fosters don’t do it for money; most only get food and cleaning materials supplied and basic vet bills if the rescue is a decent one, but once you foster your first dog, and watch it change, you will foster again, and again, and again…

If you understand dogs, you have a built-in advantage. If you have ever thought of offering a foster space to a rescue, I can only say, don’t think about it, just do it… Take that first step, make some space and save a life… Rescue can’t do it without you….

Oh, and make sure you don’t have any valuable or antique furniture around the foster… charity shops sell loads of second-hand furniture, and fosters fill their houses with it for a reason… Save a life and support a charity with second-hand furniture. What’s not to like?

Ann Parker