fostering
By fostering an animal through Corner of Kindness, you truly are a life-saver. Most of our animals come from high-kill shelters and by committing to foster them, you're saving their lives. You're also opening space in the shelter to provide more opportunities for other animals to find homes as well. It's an amazingly rewarding experience and Corner of Kindness is here to make it as easy for you as possible.
Corner of Kindness is 100% reliant on our dedicated fosters. Without great fosters like you, we can't accept any more animals into our program. We don't have shelter facilities, so a loving foster home is needed for each animal in our rescue. All these animals greatly appreciate a place to crash until they find their forever home! We strongly believe animals do best when they’re an integrated part of committed & loving foster homes – they pay in hugs & kisses!
With Corner of Kindness, you have the ability to choose the animals you'd like to foster. Animals will stay with you until they're adopted, which could be just a few days, or a few months. You can speed the adoption of your foster animal by helping to market them via social networks, attending adoption events, and providing them an awesome profile write-up and many pictures. We will always help find temporary fosters if you're traveling, too!
If you think fostering could be for you, fill out our Foster Application today!
What do we provide?
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All approved vetting costs, including monthly preventatives like Heartworm and Flea/Tick
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Food
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Treats
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Toys
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Beds
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Kennels
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Blankets
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Training, as needed
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Daycare options
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Foster Resources including newsletters, foster-only celebrations and more!
What do you Provide?
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A safe, loving environment
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Socialization with other animals, people, and places
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Transportation to & from vet appointments, adoption events, photo shoots, etc.
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A dog exercise routine
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Basic training like sit, down, loose-leash walking.
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A great profile and lots of pictures to help your foster animal stand out in their online profile
Extra Information about Fostering
How do I introduce the foster into my family?
Children should be introduced slowly to determine the compatibility with the new foster animal. It is recommended that an adult supervise all interactions between foster animals and young children. Children need to be taught the right way to treat an animal and what it means to respect an animal’s cues and need for space.
Here is an article from the ASPCA on introducing your dog to a new dog.
What if the foster does not work in my household?
We will first ask if there is anything we can do to help work through any issues - a lot of behaviors can be corrected if trained properly. If there are issues you cannot work though, we ask that you give us sufficient time as agreed
upon in your foster contract for us to find a new foster. If you want tips on ways to make transitions more smooth, etc., feel free to email fosters@CornerofKindness.org, we are HAPPY to help.
How do you say goodbye to your foster dogs?
The hardest one to let go is the first one, but we promise it does get easier. When you take another foster animal, you realize that without adopting out your previous foster, another animal would not have survived as there would be one less spot in the foster care system! There are SO SO SO many animals in need. Knowing you're the bridge for your foster animals to their forever, happy and spoiled life is very gratifying!
I have animals in my home... is that ok?
Absolutely! A lot of our animals are cat & dog friendly since they're younger, and they'd enjoy a playmate! It is, however, our policy that your personal animals are up to date on vaccinations and are spayed/neutered before you begin to foster. We are also not liable for any vetting for your personal animal.
What's the adoption process, and how are the fosters involved?
When a potential adopter fills out an application, we will send you the application via email. Review the application and then contact the potential adopter within 24 hours to arrange a meet & greet. These meet & greets can be performed at your house, their house, or a neutral location (whatever you feel comfortable with). Since you, as the foster, know these animals best, we strongly believe you should have a strong say in who adopts them! If you feel as though someone is not a good fit - just tell us why. Fosters are welcome to adopt their animals themselves, but they will still need to pay the adoption fee & sign the adoption contract. Please note that while fosters have the “first right” to adopt the animal, once an application comes through you lose your “first right” privilege.
How do we find these animals in need?
Our cats come from local shelters, and most of our dogs are rescued from high kill shelters all around the country. We have great relationships with certain shelter workers who contact us when they have animals in danger of being euthanized and we rescue as many as we can off those lists. The more fosters we have, the more animals we can save. Because the majority of our dogs come from shelters, we cannot tell if they are potty trained or not. They have unknown histories and it’s quite possible they haven’t had their medical needs properly met. Occasionally some may have kennel cough (the equivalent of a human cold) or worms, among other possibilities. Before we bring the dogs/puppies into a foster situation, we de-worm them, vaccinate them, and Frontline them.
What are some things I can expect in my first few days?
Great question! All of our dogs are temperament tested before we take them to the best of our ability. We do our best to eliminate the possibility of taking human or dog aggressive dogs. Some issues you may see in your foster animal include separation anxiety (i.e. crying or barking when left alone), marking (with urine), chewing, house training issues, barking, and cat or dog aggression.
We have many ways of managing these problems until they are resolved and are happy to offer advice. The issue we see most often is called resource guarding, which is seen in dogs and consists of them being protective over food, toys, people, etc. Many of our animals have never had nice things like toys or bones and do NOT want to share them. We are happy to help you work through this issue!
Expect an adjustment period - the first few nights are scary for them and there tends to be lots of puppy cries! Even adult dogs will have accidents until they settle in. Cats may go into hiding. It's sometimes best to provide a decompression time with your foster animals and any animals or children in your home by providing them a space of their own for a day or two until they are more relaxed.
Remember they are scared. You know you will take care of them - but they don’t realize that right away!
