I never fostered, I don't see how it would help. What I did find helpful was shadowing the veterinarians and volunteering at a local humane society for 5 years where I learned to handle different breeds, different temperaments, and saw the widest variety of dogs I could only experience there. Volunteer work in the animal care industry is highly regarded on a resume!
edit: Also, while volunteering at the humane society, and later doing a field placement with the humane society through my college course, I fed and cared for orphaned baby kittens and dogs which helped me with two separate cases while I worked at a veterinarian hospital. I found that the humane society was a great source of experience.
I fostered! Mostly bottle baby kittens, but I've done a few dogs who were slated to be PTS because the owners couldn't afford care or didn't want to pay for HWTx.
Yeah what wildwolf said to get experience and foster hurt/sick/scared animals. Yeah on death row I would expect it gave you a lot of experience. I think if you foster for some organizations you can offer t o volunteer specially the places that are rescues and have no shelter.
I would wonder if somebody having this experience would have said it cannot help. All depends what you do at your duty. If you monitor the process it will provide you with certain knowledge how this or that particular injury or desease can progress, what may occur during recuperation, or, if a dog was destined to die - you would know the symptoms of coming death. This job couldn't possibly be without certain satisfaction as well, professional and simply human, the majority of dogs will live.
I haven't really done any fostering. I work in a very busy and very high end practice. We often have patients in different stages of disease, illness or accident that require pretty specialized care. We deal with the hard cases. We see all kinds of creatures, and while I can see how fostering sick/injured animals could be helpful for some, I have the luck of having a lot of chance for experience just within the clinic.
The path toward death is not something that is pleasant at all to watch. I hated those cases, where you poor your all into an animal and watch their body fade. The instinct of knowing what will die is not something I like having. You just know. And knowing the process in which the functions of the body stop working is not fun to watch either. I've sat on cases an entire day to watch the life fade slowly.
Fostering is something not everyone can do. I would personally rather foster a healthy and happy animal and see it find a good home. The hard cases I don't think if I took them in I would want to let them go. The time and effort you put in makes it hard to see that animal go. There is a patient right now we have on and off, and I have told everyone if the woman ever considers his plight too much financially I will take him in a heartbeat even if his condition will likely end his life early. I found a bond with the little guy. I wouldn't offer it to just anyone personally.
But that's my view. I am lucky enough to have access to many ways of learning more and I'm happy back in surgery land where I do my anesthesia cases all day long lol.
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