Shelter won't foster

They probably dont want to deal with the liabilities and extra work involved with having foster homes.  I assume they aren't a private shelter?  You could always ask them what their specific concerns are so that you could figure out a way to address them.

I believe they're a branch of the OSPCA.

If it's just a matter of liability, couldn't they just have a small waiver printed for families to sign? I really don't think that someone who has the heart to foster an animal would ever sue a rescue organization...

Our local city shelter doesnt allow dogs to be fostered straight from the shelter either. It is sad for me too, there are a lot of dogs I would have more than willingly fostered who ended up being euthanized due to lack of space.
 
I just assumed it was city policy.
 
My best advice if you want to foster a dog from the shelter is to talk to a local rescue and see if they would be willing to pull the dog if you offered it a foster home, sometimes they will, especially if you offer to "sponsor" it.

What exactly does "sponsoring" involve?

Sponsoring around here only involves $. The amount depends on the rescue, some ask $200 some ask $100 and for a cat it is only $70. And that is also around here, it might be cheaper or more expensive where you live. The sponsorship (if done through a good rescue) only covers the vetting fees.
 
Around here if you offer to give a sponsorship (even if it is small, around $50 or so) and a foster home until the dog gets adopted, most will accept. As long as what you pay covers the vetting, most rescues dont mind pulling a dog for you.
 
I have tried to do the sponsorship/fostering thing but the lady I was working with drug her feet because the dog was a pit mix and the dog ended up being euthanized. (The lady said later that it is hard to move pit bulls, but I had offered to foster until she found a home.) Now, I just foster for one of the rescues that pull dogs who have a place to go. I might attempt to do the sponsorship thing again, but for sure wont ask the same rescue.
 
You have to also be very careful as to who you foster with. I got a 11 year old, high HW+, beagle mix dumped on me by a local rescue group. After I asked why he wasnt on her web page, she told me that she had too many dogs in boarding & that I had to find him a new home myself. She also told me she didnt have enough $ to get him HW treated. She decided to ask an outrageous adoption fee. I found him a home (which I ended up not charging a fee for-I know you arent supposed to do that but it was a good home and the guy didnt seem to mind he was HW+) and in the end, the woman with the rescue group had to pay to get the dog HW treated.
 
So be very careful, ask around about the rescue before you decide to get them to pull any dog from your shelter. But also keep in mind, some rescuers enjoy starting trouble with other rescues too. If at all possible I would talk to people who have fostered for the rescue before and see what they think. I am sure you already knew this but I like to warn people since I got into a bad situation as well.
 
 
 
 

I will absolutely second "be careful who you foster for"!
 
When we first moved up here I took a litter of pups whose Momma had developed mastitious (sp) and couldn't feed them.  There were seven of the little darlings.  MONTHS later there were still FOUR.  And enough months later that I had to kick and scream about altering them before I had a HOUSE full of inbred gsd pups.
 
I placed two of the girls myself, and months later placed Sadie (now Trinity) with Lori from the board along with her foster "brother".  Thunder still remains with us.  I would have happily kept Sadie but Sheba was not allowing her to be all that she could be...resented having another female in the house.....
 
That rescue did NOTHING to help place the pups after the first couple months.  I got NO calls from potential families and I basically was completely on my own with them.
 
The SECOND litter I took was from a far better group and I had enormous help and support.

Glenda- Wasnt there something about spay/neutering also? You were the one who told me to be weary and well I wasnt weary enough. It's crazy how many rescues will stick you with a dog (or dogs) and act like they dont know you. I was VERY lucky that I found Capone a home.
 
Amina-Also be absolutly sure to ask them what they plan on doing to get the dog adopted out, if they have adoption events, a web page, contacts, exc. I always ask how long I will be expected to keep the dog, but I only do short term fostering right now.

Yes, they were supposed to pay for spuetering and never sent the funds.  I ended up having it done at the HS with my own funds since I could NOT afford what the vet would have charged me.

hi to you all. mmthomason i was wondering what shelter u  volunteer at 50 dogs a week is a lot. I was thinking about volunteering at a shelter but im not old enough yet im 14 tomorrow. I have already decided i want to be a vet but dogs are something i have always been intrested in. I have already found two wonderful adoptable dogs that  we have taken in one is two and the other is 6 months plus are two pugs. You seem to do alot of rescue work and was wondering if u knew anything i could do to help.

Little Rock, Arkansas, 2500 animals are killed a year which averages out to be about 50 a week. 80% are euthanized at the shelter. I dont like to throw that out there since the city frowns upon anyone associated with LRAS using the "e" word when talking about LRAS. But if we ignore that animals get PTS, that doesnt help the problem. Dont get me wrong, the shelter manager & the staff are WONDERFUL. It's just a problem of having too many dogs, and too few adoptions or rescues for the animals to go to. Not to mention the shelter is in horrible condition (thank goodness the city finally agreed to help build a new one which opens in December and should be more appealing to the public) and terribly depressing. The dogs are in cages 24/7, most of the cats are as well....

I can warn you that volunteering at a kill shelter is no fun at all. I only do it because there are so few volunteers. I am the ONLY cat volunteer at the shelter. If there were more volunteers to be perfectly honest, I wouldnt step foot in that place. It is very hard on me and sometimes I walk in the door, feel tears in my eyes and have to walk right back out and go home. It's hard seeing all of those animals and knowing that the next time you visit they wont be there, they will be dead. And knowing that these animals were sweet and all deserved homes. I have only been volunteering there for about a year.

We have a very bad problem with low adoption rates. Animals rarely get adopted from the shelter, I dont think a single dog (or cat) has been adopted all week, and I can guarentee at least 15 animals have come in. The best luck we have is with a few rescues who will take dogs from our shelter.

I wish I could do more rescue work. All I do is what I can do. I would talk to your local shelter, they can help you. If your parents would agree, I know foster homes are always in desperate need (where you keep the animal until it finds a home or until it gets transported), I know at our shelter you have to be 18 to volunteer or have a parent with you, maybe your mom would take you to the shelter some time and let you volunteer with her? Also, one wonderful thing is trying to find rescues to take the dogs from the shelter, of course you have to be very, very careful but posting them over the interenet (on sites like petfinder.com or to rescue group lists) sometimes will get a dog out of the shelter.

I hope I help, please feel free to PM me or email me at [email=adoptarkansas@hotmail.com]adoptarkansas@hotmail.com[/email] .


You might also want to talk to Glenmar, she is a lot wiser than me with rescue and has so much more experience. She might be able to give you some more ideas of how you can help.

k thanks i mean fostering isnt an option cause we already  have 4 and i doubt my mom will volunteer i mean she would let me but she gets to upset, i might just have to wait till im 18. If u  think of anything tell me.

According to the shelter in the small town I used to live in, liability was the reason- the city literally couldn't afford the insurance needed. A waiver is important, but despite signing a waiver a family still could sue and the city'd have to come up with the money to defend themselves- and even then they might not win. rivate shelters/groups frequently don't have quite so much to lose in the way of assets and are probably less likely to get sued.

mmthomason, I know what you mean about the LR shelter- I did a transport for a dog from there last year (I think it was LR- might have been Searcy? Can't remember- it was the municipal shelter in one of those cities and I did a private group pick up in the other) and it was very depressing- it also seemed like there were a lot of purebreds with no way to get to breed rescue groups elsewhere which might have been willing to take them- AR is pretty short on breed rescues, though. The Dallas shelters are AWFUL- they've been saying they need a new one as long as I can remember (and capacity is an issue) but the money's never been there to get them updated. FOrtunately, as the metroplex has grown, some of the outlying city shelters have helped at least a little to take some of the burden off Dallas proper, although it's still a terrible situation.

I am from one of the shelters that don't foster dogs.  We are private so we must be extremely careful of liablity and we also feel that since we are the ones who do the actual placements we need to be able to evalute and handle the dog daily to truly know what we are doing.  And Unfortuanately there are people out thier who we just can't trust.
 
An aside about the transports.  We do try to help out other shelters when our count is down.  Also a nonprofit group in our area has recently been charged with 120 counts of animal cruelty ..  This group was contacting shelters down south and transporting them up here, which was all well and good until they found the 120 dogs crated in wire crates one on top of the other with feces in all the crates in a house.  Of the 120 dogs, 17 were found dead or dying and another 7 have died since they came into state care.  The little girl I talk about above was one of the dogs, she gave birth to 6 puppies at our shelter.  This group seriously took many shelters for a ride and we just wish we could find out where they exactly came from. This group didn't spay or neuter and they were profiting by breeding these poor guys.   so just be careful when offering fostering or transporting..

PWCA-LR is bad, there are very, very very few rescue groups here. I was talking to another volunteer on Friday and we realized there isnt even a lab rescue in the state and of course that is the breed most in need here.
 
We are upposed to get a new shelter. Some say it is going to be a cure of sorts and at first I thought so myself but now I am not so sure. The new shelter is supposed to be "more appealing" to the public. I thank you for transporting the LRAS dog though.
 
I am glad to know it is getting better in your area, I sure hope it gets better here soon.