The Hazards of a Fostering Program

In the era of increasing live release rates, creating a fostering program is a no brainer… or is it?  Here are some of the problems associated with fostering:

People want to foster highly adoptable animals.   Placing the animal in to a foster home, removes the animal from finding a permanent owner.

People who want to “test drive” an animal.  People want to have an animal in their homes, without the cost of pet ownership.  If they can talk a shelter into fostering the animal to them, the shelter picks up the costs of food and medical expenses.

There are a surprising number of high maintenance foster homes.  In one of these homes, the foster parent will panic over small issues and run up large medical costs for the shelter.

Foster parents who refuse to relinquish the animal when adopters are found or want to interrogate the prospective adopters.