Acceptable to foster?

[ksotto333]

We absolutely are not set up to foster. We have 2 dogs in a small house, plus I have my 19 month granddaughter a couple days a week. However I saw a abandoned GSD this week on the forum in a high kill shelter. She broke my heart, and I wondered if fostering a dog in an outside kennel with a lot of physical interaction and attention would be better than leaving her in the shelter? I know we have some people on the forum that keep some of their dogs in kennels, as do some breeders. I wasn't sure if this would be acceptable or not, since I have never been involved with shelters or rescues.

[RebelGSD]

The dog is going to be forever grateful to you for saving her life. The kennel setup will be probably the best she had in life. There are many fosters who keep dogs on farms or in kennels until a home or another solution is found. There are not enough foster homes out there for all the wonderful animals in need.
Go for it!

[Liesje]

There are all sorts of foster homes with all different setups. My recommendation would just be to foster through a rescue or shelter. I would not pull dogs and foster on your own unless you are able to basically commit to keeping the dog. It can be a LOT harder to find adopters, and you have to cover all the expenses yourself. When I find a dog that needs help I try to get it signed over to a rescue and then foster through the rescue so I'm not stuck on my own if there ends up being something major wrong with the dog.

[martemchik]

We are hopefully going to start fostering in the next year, and I'll definitely do it though a rescue or shelter like Liesje suggested.

The only problem I see with leaving a dog in a kennel is that its tough to gauge its house skills in that situation. How it behaves around household items/members is quite important when a potential adopter comes around. It's also very difficult to foster out of state. Just a lot of leg work involved in just getting the dog to a person, and that's not even the final home. I don't know if many rescues/shelters do this unless they are pretty much handing the dog over to a local rescue/shelter. That way the local one can get the word out and hopefully find the dog a home closer to where it is instead of needing transportation back to the original location.

[ksotto333]

Originally Posted by martemchik

We are hopefully going to start fostering in the next year, and I'll definitely do it though a rescue or shelter like Liesje suggested.

The only problem I see with leaving a dog in a kennel is that its tough to gauge its house skills in that situation. How it behaves around household items/members is quite important when a potential adopter comes around. It's also very difficult to foster out of state. Just a lot of leg work involved in just getting the dog to a person, and that's not even the final home. I don't know if many rescues/shelters do this unless they are pretty much handing the dog over to a local rescue/shelter. That way the local one can get the word out and hopefully find the dog a home closer to where it is instead of needing transportation back to the original location.

Not knowing how the dog would behave in the house is one of the problems I thought of also. Both of my dogs are mellow and good with other dogs, but the thought of having them together in the yard(at some point) and then taking 2 in and leaving one out seems wrong. I'm not prepared right now to do anything but thinking ahead to see if it would work.

[Magwart]

Originally Posted by Liesje

When I find a dog that needs help I try to get it signed over to a rescue and then foster through the rescue so I'm not stuck on my own if there ends up being something major wrong with the dog.

Some shelters let you foster for the shetler. That's what I do, as we don't have a GSR here. The shelter handles vetting, speutering, etc., we sometimes have offsite adoption events for the dogs in foster, we get to rewrite the Petfinder bios and post better pics, and we get absolute veto over any adopter and are encouraged to do home checks, reference and vet checks. Every public shelter is different, and resources will be far less than with a good rescue, but the progressive ones may have fostering programs.

As for outside, make sure--really, really sure -- you aren't fostering a dog with kennel cough. I don't think an outdoor run works for that kind of dog, during the winter. They must be kept warm inside, esp. at night. During the summer might be easier.