Am I Ready To Be a Foster?

Here is a short list of the primary responsibilities:

-You are committing to keeping your foster until adopted.  We must minimize the amount of disruption in our pup’s lives.  When you agree to foster with us you agree that you are willing and able to keep this dog in your home “for the duration”. 

-Our main objective is to get the pups into the right furever home as fast as we can.  This involves updating their descriptions visible on our website, Facebook, and bringing the animal to events when appropriate. Depending on the dog, this may be 2 weeks, 2 months, or much longer.

-The dog and the supplies must be picked up at our facility in West Allis.

-All medication administered must be recorded by you in our software system.

-You will work on basic training as most of the animals rescued have never been in a home, felt a loving touch, and are often flight risks. This involves crate training and house training.

-You will provide transportation to the office or vet when medical tasks are needed.

-You will communicate, arrange, and conduct meets with potential adopters.  In-person meetings for all members of the adopting family are required at the foster’s home.  You need to be comfortable with potential adopters coming to your home and visiting with the dog while you are observing (meets can be done outdoors).

-Vigilant monitoring of your foster for health and wellness is important. Transitioning to a new place is hard on dogs, and the distress is often physical symptoms in the form of diarrhea, worms, lack of appetite etc. Your quick identification of health issues can make a difference in their survival.

Please note that fosters cannot adopt any of their first 3 foster animals.

If you’re ready for these responsibilities, complete an application.

After you submit your application

Reach out to your vet if you have/have had animals and give them permission to talk with our volunteers. Doing so ensures that we won’t be delayed doing your vet check.

If you rent, reach out to your landlord to talk through your desire to foster. That way they won’t be surprised when we contact them.

What happens after the application is submitted?

Our volunteers get to work to complete the following:

-Complete a background check on all household members age 18 and older

-If you rent, your landlord is contacted to make sure that you are allowed a pet, and if there are any restrictions in place by your landlord

-If you already have pets, or had pets in the past 10 years, we’ll call the vet you provided to ensure that they were/are up-to-date.

-Your dog/cat is considered up to date if they are:

       -Spayed/neutered
       -Current on the DAPPV vaccine (dog) or Feline RCP (cat)
       -Current on rabies
       -Current on heartworm testing & monthly preventative (dog)
       -Had a FeLiv test in the last two years (cat)
       -Current on yearly wellness exam

-These requirements are for ALL cats including barn and indoor only.   Annual titer testing is acceptable in lieu of annual vaccines.

-If there are any issues with any of the checks someone will be in contact with you

-Once these checks are completed and passed you will be invited to our foster orientation session

You’re almost there….waiting for a training session

Now that your foster application has been processed, you and all family members residing in the house over the age of 16 must attend a virtual foster orientation. This is a 2.5 hour training that goes over a bit about our history and community involvement. You will learn where we save dogs from, our policies, as well as other important information you’ll need as a foster to be successful.

Once you’ve completed this training, the final part is a quick 30 minute virtual home visit where a seasoned foster will give the house a once over to ensure that there are no dangerous things around for the foster to get into, as well as offer some tips about things such as placement of the foster’s crate, if they see anything that you may want to move (cords on the floor or that priceless vase that’s a family heirloom passed down for generations that may be in danger of a happy dog tail knocking it over for example) as well as answer any lingering questions that may have arose after going through training.

You′re approved to foster!

Congratulations! We’re so excited to have you on board as a foster for us! Now that you’re approved, you’ll get an email giving you access to things like your official JRs Pups-N-Stuff Inc. email, access to our pet management system, a foster contract that needs to be signed, as well as information on how to schedule a time to go pick up your first foster!