As a foster home, you provide
a safe haven for a Golden in need. You
provide food, water, an indoor home for the dog, and, most importantly
of all, love. You will evaluate your
foster dog to see what type of permanent home would be best. You will be responsible for taking your foster
dog to the vet for any necessary routine veterinary care including
shots, a heartworm test, spaying or neutering. Love
a Golden Rescue will pay the vet or reimburse you for that routine
care, for any emergency care, and for any other veterinary care which
is pre-approved by the Foster Home Coordinator.
We all have our own dogs and
understand the need for the foster dog to fit into your home with any
other pets you may have. Many foster dogs
enjoy playing with other dogs and often seem to learn the ropes faster
if they have another dog to teach them.
We will offer support for your
fostering. If you have any problems with
your foster dog, we’d like to discuss it with you and see what types of
solutions we can work out. If a foster dog
does not work out in your home for any reason, we will move it as soon
as possible.
Some foster dogs come directly
from loving homes and will often fit right into your household routine. Others may not be so lucky and may need to
learn about what it’s like to be part of a family.
Although those dogs may be more of a challenge to
foster, they also provide huge rewards as you see their personalities
unfold and their confidence grow. You
truly have the opportunity to teach them what love means.
Some people (including all of
us at one time or another) are reluctant to foster for fear that we
will become so attached to our foster dog that letting the foster dog
go to its permanent home will be very hard. Rather
than deciding not to foster though, please consider that fear to be a
good sign--it shows how deeply you care about the dogs.
We each deal with this reluctance in our own way. Some people focus on how happy the dog will be
in the adoptive home and how happy the adoptive family will be with the
dog. Other people reason that when the
foster dog goes to its adoptive home, another dog then has a
desperately needed chance and can come to the foster home.
Still other people think about their foster dog as
belonging to an unnamed friend (who is identified at the time of
adoption). They look at fostering as
similar to dog-sitting and care for and love their friend’s dog, but
also look forward to the time when the friend and dog can be together
as they are meant to be. Rest assured that
if you try fostering and then find that you absolutely can’t let your
foster dog go, there is a solution—you can adopt your foster dog.
To become a foster home,
please contact us at volunteer@loveagolden.com. The process is very similar to adopting a dog
from our rescue. We will set up a
convenient time to come visit your home with one of our dogs and can
discuss fostering in more detail at that time.
You may
also complete an application form "on-line" to apply to be a foster
home - just "Click" - HERE.
There’s almost always an extra
pair of dark brown eyes looking for love.