By Steph Selice

Animal rescues often have needs for space and resources far beyond current capacities. Animal lovers can help potential pets find loving homes through fostering.

Foster humans have big responsibilities. Above all, a successful foster home will be safe, loving, and reliable. Foster families vary as widely as people do, but all understand that every creature needs to feel secure and loved.

Some fosterers nurture shy creatures to become more socialized. Others care for sick animals. Fosterers care for companion animals of people who are homeless, in hospitals, in prison, or who have left unsafe domestic situations. Others foster animals rescued from testing labs or animal hoards. And some offer hospice fostering. Fostering can be as flexible as pets need it to be, with the support of caring people.

Before You Foster: Getting Ready

Before becoming foster families, people often ask similar questions: What do we need to know and do? And how will we be able to let animals go when it’s time?

Most foster programs offer training/education to make sure you’re ready to foster. They’ll find out who lives with you, humans and pets, and ask about your home, work, and family demands. They’ll help you care for your foster, including veterinary visits and medications, and food/supplies (as needed and available). Fosterers prepare adoptable pets for new homes, sometimes nurturing animals harder to adopt but still needing loving care.

Where do you start? Make sure your own pets have up-to-date vaccinations and other vet treatment. Fosters may require space separate from other animals. Your foster’s privacy needs could last from a few days to months.

Time spent with your foster is essential. Foster programs encourage being with your animal at least an hour daily. The bond you nurture will help your foster feel loved, at ease, and more adoptable.

And you may need to bring your fosters in to reintroduce them to the program’s facilities/potential adopters.

Fosterers on Fostering
Several experienced fosterers from King Street Cats in Alexandria offer insights on fostering, including how to say goodbye.

Fostering Multiple Litters Annually: Meridith Sebring

It helps to think of it as a “kitten trade-in program.” I couldn’t save more if I kept them all.

Space: You don’t need a lot, especially at first. Little ones just need a spare bathroom or bedroom. Winning over the shy ones is my favorite. Seeing kittens go from spitty, hissy little furballs to purr machines is so rewarding.

You give them food and love and get them ready for a forever home. And while it’s always bittersweet saying goodbye, it opens your home to help more animals. That’s my kitten trade-in program.

Running a Foster Pet Program: Andrea Cerino

I foster and also train and support new fosterers. As a fosterer, your job is to get animals ready to be adopted. If you adopt your fosters, you likely won’t have room to foster more. But sometimes a foster “fail” is the only option. Not a bad thing!

Watching kittens grow and develop their personalities is so much fun. Having a shy animal finally come to you for attention and snuggles is the best feeling. It’s a lot of work, especially with kittens. But it’s worth it.

Fostering can be heartbreaking. Terminally sick animals need a home. They deserve to be safe, loved, and warm to the end, so hospice fostering, while heartbreaking, can also be rewarding.

Fostering Pets with Special Needs: Patti Gross
Special needs fostering is rarely easy, but it’s always worth it.

Every time a fragile, ill kitten gains an ounce, you celebrate but don’t stop worrying. When an adult cat shut down from fear and depression eats on their own for the first time, you want to throw a party. When an injured kitty finds a way to live their very best life despite the challenges, you sigh with relief. When they get adopted into a loving home, you’d lead a parade!

All those victories make the exquisitely painful moments of loss bearable. Whether they leave you for a forever family or to wait for you at the Rainbow Bridge, they take a piece of your heart. The missing pieces are filled, though, by the next and the next and the next.

Fostering Multiple Species, Including Laboratory Rescues: Julie Germany

The best advice I received about fostering—because all kinds of worries push into your mind (Will the fosters and my pets get along? Will they destroy my house? What if they get sick and die?)—is to just do it. Many worries evaporate once you bring your first foster home. Over time, you learn how to better connect with animals and how to be a better fosterer. The learning process is reciprocal.

We build strong emotional bonds with our fosters. We’ve fostered cats and dogs, including dogs rescued from labs. When those animals “graduate” from foster care, it feels like a kind of death or loss—an emotional goodbye, knowing they’ll continue their journey without you. We do grieve. People often say, “I don’t see how you can give them up.” I tell them, “If I experience that loss when they move on, then I know I’ve done my job. I’ve opened myself—and the animals I’m fostering—to love, connection, bonding, and family.” That’s exactly what you want animals to learn so they’re better prepared for their forever families.

About the Author: Steph Selice volunteered as an adoption counselor at King Street Cats in Alexandria for seven years and is a frequent contributor to this column.