Foster

What does fostering mean? Fostering means temporarily caring for an animal until they can be placed with their furever family. SWCHS relies on foster families to care for expectant moms, newborns, and seniors. Fostering provides numerous benefits to the animals, SWCHS, and to the families that foster. If you are interested in changing an animal’s future, please fill out a Foster Application Form!

Be Part of a Community – Fostering connects you to a whole community committed to saving animals, just like you. You can get help through the fostering process, share ideas, and can even become friends.

Save Lives – Without fostering, many animals simply could not survive. Fostering is a blessing for expectant moms by giving them a quiet place to deliver, newborns during the critical first few weeks, pets recovering from medical procedures that need more attention, and senior pets that struggle to adapt to kennel life.

More Adoptable Pets – Living with a foster family is practice for their furever home. They learn what home life should be, which can include leash training, housebreaking, and basic good behavior. These skills are attractive to potential adopters and can help place a wonderful pet with their furever home faster.

Expenses are Covered – The SWCHS supports foster animals by providing vaccinations, vet visits, and other care needs. Fostering is the next best chance, aside from adoption, that an animal has to feeling a warm loving home. These supplies come from our wonderful community who support us with donations.

Make a Better Match – Foster families get to know that pet better than anyone else and have a say in the adoption. A good match between adopter and pet is the best chance the pet has at finding the perfect furever family.

Family Involvement – Having a foster pet is a great way to get the entire family involved in volunteering and animal rescue. Children can learn responsibility, empathy, and animal behavior. Family pets can benefit from a foster by having a playmate. Fostering can be a great way to explore the idea of having a pet without immediately committing to adoption.

Complete a Family – Helping complete a family by fostering is one of the most rewarding feelings. While saying goodbye can be tough, you can rest assured knowing that you have given them the best chance possible.

We appreciate our Foster Families for all of their hard work and daily dedication.

 

 

Foster Testimonials

“We decided to foster because we lost our St Bernard a few weeks ago to osteosarcoma. Now working from home due to the pandemic, the house was too quiet and depressing so we needed some entertainment and fun to fill the void.  We saw the post from the humane society that they needed volunteers during the quarantine and knew it was a great opportunity for us to help. We have a lot of love to give and choose a dog that has strict restrictions. We have no kids or no other animals at this time so it was a perfect fit for us. 

It is amazing and so rewarding to see things that we take for granted in our daily lives that mean so much to a shelter dog. Gilligan claimed our couch within an hour of being here and loves to sleep there and haul blankets and toys up there with him. Just seeing our house and backyard through his eyes makes us excited and happy for him to experience this and get a break from the shelter life.  

It is amazing and just an overall rewarding experience to know as a foster we can help out an animal by providing love and care to someone that does not have a place yet to call home. I am now invested in this loving dog and will do all I can to teach him how to be the best he can be so he can find that forever home. I wish that his forever home could be us, but the heartbreak of recently losing our dog who was our everything for almost 8 years,  we are just not ready for that full time pet yet. But with the love we have in our hearts for animals, fostering was right for us at this time. 

Gilligan’s favorite things: blankets, squeaky toys, rope toys, all toys pretty much, puppy ice cream (We give him the cup and he puts it in his mouth and runs to the living room to eat it. As he licks the cup his tail is wagging the entire time).

Foster – Gilligan”

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“We decided to foster because we had recently lost our own beloved dog and were missing the canine companionship. Fostering has been a great experience! It does take some time to get to know the animal and for them to get to know you. The SWCHS staff provided us with information regarding what they knew about Coco’s background and her personality. This was extremely helpful so that we knew what to expect and what we could do to make her comfortable.  Coco has really warmed up to us and is bringing lots of laughs and joy to our family.


While fostering we have learned that Coco is quite the diva!  She hates to go outside when the ground is cold or wet. She is very inquisitive – she is always sniffing around looking for something!  She is also very affectionate and loves to cuddle. Fostering has been a great experience. The application process was quick and easy and the staff at SWCHS have been amazing to work with.   They have made sure that we have everything we need to provide the best environment for our foster pet and are always available if we have questions or concerns.

Coco’s favorite things are stuffed animals!  She has a bunny that she brought from the shelter that she always has with her.  She has found a few others around the house that she carries around as well. She also loves going for walks.  Her cute little nose is to the ground the whole time, just sniffing away.

Foster – Coco”

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