Fostering a rescue dog

OneYorkshireLass

We're going to be working with a charity to foster rescue dogs until they find permanent homes.

The charity seem pretty good about giving advice etc, but wondered if anyone else had any experience of doing this and any tips etc?

SiberianHusky

Yes! I have done this for a certain breed welfare (bet you can't guess which breed !)

Every single dog that comes in is different, and will have a different story. Do you have any animals at home at the moment? I have my 3 dogs and the very first priority is to make sure that your dogs are always looked out for first. Have a safe area to ensure your animals and foster dog can be separated when you're not around (bedtime/shopping).

The hardest bit for me was letting go. We had an 11 week old pup come in after being on her third home and the hardest thing I ever did was let her go to her new home about 6 weeks later. I haven't fostered since then because the heartbreak was just too much. When my oldest two are gone, we may well go back to fostering but it's a lot of stress to put on them at the moment.

Treat each dog as a clean slate, start from absolute basics. Assume the dogs knows nothing (training/housebreaking/eating/walking on a lead etc), that way you'll only be pleasantly surprised when Fido does know 'sit' and can hold on throughout the night.

A massive well done to you by the way. Fostering is one of the hardest things to do. You can have a wreck of a dog come in and by the time of rehoming, the dog is a changed personality. It's a beautiful thing and is truly admirable. You have to have a big heart to do fostering.

Happy to provide tips/advice as and when you need them.

OneYorkshireLass

SiberianHusky wrote: »

Yes! I have done this for a certain breed welfare (bet you can't guess which breed !)

Hmm ... chihuahuas? :D

I'm definitely worried about getting attached, as I'm a bit of a sucker for a sob story!

We don't have any other pets, so that's one potential problem avoided.

I'm also worried about the house getting wrecked. Plus I've never trained a dog before so I'm reading all I can (any recommendations for good training books/websites are most welcome).

Thanks for your kind words. We were going to adopt a dog, but we were all a bit iffy with the commitment - at least this way we're helping out, having a dog and not committing for life

SiberianHusky

What are the circumstances of the dogs coming into you? Will they be coming direct from previous owners or will they be coming from kennels?

It does make life a whole lot more simpler if you have any other pets - so you're right, that is an awful big problem well and truly avoided.

I'm afraid I can't offer any kind words about your house getting wrecked. We were incredibly lucky with ours that they weren't fussed about destruction but you have to remember with fostering, that the dogs will be coming in from all sorts of backgrounds. And most won't know that chewing on your sofa isn't a good thing.

I always had 'ground rules' with my fosters (and my own dogs to be fair!). The fosters always had a space to call their own. A safe place. You can do crate training (Google will bring up hundreds of websites about this) or you can do what we did: basket in the kitchen. Giving a new dog free run of your house is a big no-no. Remember with fostering, you have to hand over a dog which will slot into a new family well, you can't give them a maniac that jumps on everyone's beds.

All my fosters were not allowed upstairs and not allowed on the furniture. Future homes may not want this so set that training from the start. If the future home does want this, let them train the dog to come on the sofa. There's nothing worse than hearing about a dog being returned because 'we keep finding him in the kids' room' or 'he won't get off the armchair'.

I know that a number of fostering schemes through large charities now offer dog training schools. Without knowing the charity you're doing it for, I can't elaborate. The rescue I was working for were unable to afford dog training schools (rightly so!) meaning a lot of the training was home based.

Are you brand new to owning a dog? I'm just wondering how much support the organisation may be able to give you with this.

I could honestly write for days and days and days about fostering/training/coping with the foster leaving!

OneYorkshireLass

They come straight from the pound or from kennels. The charity seems on-the-ball when it comes to trying to find out their personalities and history. They will also match us up to a dog as if we were adopting.

I was going to provide plenty of things to chew/destroy but some people say don't give them too many things to play with, and some say give them lots to occupy themselves with - lots of contradictory words of advice out there.

We're definitely going to have a crate, having read that a dog needs a place to retreat too if things get too much. Definitely not going to let it go upstairs or on the furniture.

It's a small charity so there's no training schools, but I might look and see if I can find one locally and fund that myself, particularly if the dog knows nothing. They're usually referred to as 'puppy classes' though - do they tend to accept older dogs?

I'm brand new to owning a dog, but one member of the family has owned a dog before.

We haven't had a home check yet, so I might be getting ahead of myself with all this, but I think we'll pass it (fingers crossed).

Fosterdog

As my name suggests I've fostered dogs, I've been doing it for several years although currently foster free as my landlord has a two dog limit and we failed on two fosters. We fully plan on fostering again one day and our two are both slightly older and with health issues so will probably being doing it again in the next 2-3 years.

Every dog you get is different, you do get attached to them all and I have cried and been distraught when every one has been rehomed. Each time I said I would take a break from fostering to recover but the longest gap between dogs was around two weeks as I needed the distraction of a new dog to ease the upset at the previous one going.

It's very rewarding, and at times frustrating, and heartbreaking.

On my first few I just went day to day without really planning much but after a while you forget what progress you've made and how you want to progress so I started a blog for the rest of them and set up a facebook page for them. It really helped to track progress and and a bad day I could look back at the photos and entries from the first few days and realise just how far we had come.

OneYorkshireLass

Thanks for replying, fosterdog.

A blog is a great idea, as we're supposed to promote the dog as much as possible to find it a new home. Will certainly look at doing that

elsien

I have just accidentally fostered, in that I was looking to adopt a particular breed and took on a foster with a view to possible adoption.
The first foster was not a great experience as she was very dog aggressive and I was not physically able to manage her. As dog aggressive dogs can be hard to rehome I kept her for several months, which was several months longer than I would have liked, as unfortunately due to resources there wasn't a lot of help forthcoming. So I guess I'd be saying check with the rescue how much help they are able to offer if you do encounter difficulties.
My learning curve from that one was that a) ask lots and lots of questions, and read between the lines. With this particular rescue, saying a dog is "giddy" means it's completely manic and untrained.
however sorry you feel for the dog, you do have your own needs to take into account. If it doesn't work out, you've still kept an animal out of kennels for however many weeks which can only be a good thing
c) they may be all over the place for the first few days - bear with it and they will settle and
d) you might be the right home for a dog that another foster struggled with, and vice versa. We all have different tolerances to things - I can do destructiveness and mouthing but can't cope with lots of barking, for example.

My second foster was due to the previous fosters being completely unable to cope. I'm now a failed foster, and am in the process of adopting him.:D

OneYorkshireLass

Thanks elsien. We can ask questions when we have our home check; I'm trying to compile a list of things to ask, and I'll definitely ask what happens if we can't cope with the dog.

I can't cope with lots of barking either. I think that, and being destructive are the things I'm worried about most.

I've been looking at loads of rescues over the past year and there's a certain 'language' amongst them. As you say, 'giddy' usually means it's manic; 'lively' means it wants entertaining all the time, etc

elsien

Being destructive isn't as bad as it sounds if you're using a crate, as you can put them in there when you go out.
Otherwise it's a bit like having a 3 year old in the house - you dog proof the things they're likely to get teeth into and the minute it goes quiet you're whizzing out the door to see what they're up to. Gitdog (current one) would have wrecked the joint if left completely unattended, but in a couple of months has only had the odd shoe, the toggle of mums coat (her own fault as I warned her he wouldn't be able to resist) a paper potter and my laundry basket. Nothing really expensive or irreplaceable.

OneYorkshireLass

That's good to know, thank you
I think I'm being over-cautious.