When you decide to foster, the process is quite simple, by visiting a local shelter, many offer foster programs that require forms and screening to ensure the animals will get adequate care and attention. If you are selected, then you will get called to meet with an animal that awaits a home, based on your questions this may be a dog or cat varying in age and health. Jennifer Reilly, 26, fostered a malnourished black cat and found that over time, she could care for another just as easily so decided to take in a second cat, older and less agile.
“They just needed a home, they don’t do much. They hang out like brothers and I always come home happy to see them,” said Reilly. She adopted the two after four months and has considered taking in one more. “I don’t want to be the crazy cat lady, but they really don’t do anything but eat and cuddle when they want. They don’t bother me, I like the company and I love that I was able to help.”
Reilly has now had her cats for three years and cautions that helping animals becomes contagious. There are, in fact, many things to take into account before taking on the responsibility of fostering. In an article by the Chicago Tribune animal activist Valerie Kennedy, she sheds light on how dogs are often purchased on impulsive whims, but then dumped in shelters after owners realize just how much work they really are. “Shelters are filled with barking Christmas gifts the recipient didn’t want or couldn’t handle. But a foster dog is different from a gift dog. It’s a gift you give yourself, maybe just for a while.”
Photo courtesy of Jennifer Reilly.
Many may not understand the heartache and the stress this can become if not emotionally prepared. Virginia Dukes-DeLorenzo, 29, decided to foster black cats.
“They have this stigma, they’re the bad cats and you wouldn’t believe the things people do to these poor cats. Some are barely alive and you want to save them, your heart breaks, they are better off being put to sleep. I cried when I got Pepper. He was found as a kitten with a litter that didn’t make it. The mom was killed.” Dukes-DeLorenzo has since, adopted Tiger, a fluffy 10-pound cat. “I just put up the Christmas tree, last year these goof balls knocked it down, ornaments and all,” said Dukes-DeLorenzo, “I don’t think I’ll do any more fostering, I can’t cope, I’ll have to adopt more cats, I’ll be a crazy cat lady.”
According to Gail Buchwald, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) vice president, ‘Fosters are an indispensable component for shelters, but there is a lot of turnover, she said, because of so-called foster failures — people who fall in love with their foster pets and adopt them.’
