Well, I foster for the animal shelter on Easterwood.

I drive, and I've been doing it for about seven years since I adopted my boy Jax.

Foster with the Leon County Humane Society.

We've been foster.

My husband and I have been fostering since September of 2014, so we've been fostering almost ten years.

We're on foster 63 now.

We prefer large breed dogs.

So, if it's going to be 90 to 100 pounds or more, that's our preferred breed.

Although we'll take anything we've done puppies.

We've done.

I think we had a Frenchie recently, so we'll do anything.

but we do love the big dogs.

Those two women are Maureen Thompson and Mallory Davis.

I was curious about the animal foster process, so I looked up some foster people and animal foster organizations to talk to.

In my case, the Tallahassee Animal Shelter and the Leon County Humane Society.

Grayson Walters is with City of Tallahassee Animal Services.

The foster program itself is essentially people sign up.

They essentially apply to be a foster parent with us.

and they're helping get animals out of the shelter and into a temporary home, the goal being to get them adopted.

Lisa Glunt, the Leon County Humane Society.

From the foster perspective, that person is setting the animal up in a home, to be treated like it is part of the family to continue socializing the animal.

It's great when we have fosters socializing the animal with other animals if they need that continued socialization.

but they're setting that animal up with the care and love that it needs and in order to get adopted.

Although I spoke to two separate organizations, I found that their processes for animal fostering were nearly identical, both giving orientation and training cover, fostering expenses, and have backup plans if a foster situation is not going well.

And both begin with a foster application.

It's helping us with deciding you know, what animals might be appropriate in your home.

and a little bit about, you know, where you live and what you've got going on so that we can make the best match possible.

I think that's the biggest point of the foster application.

So with fostering, we are here to provide everything for the animal medically supplies that you need, food.

we're here to set you up to, comfortably provide temporary housing for the animal.

You know, until we can find out a good home.

Our foster, we do have a foster coordinator full time.

and generally, she's taking those applications, and then she'll reach out.

there is an orientation session.

So going over a lot of what to expect, how it all works.

generally she does those virtually.

So it's pretty convenient for folks that don't have to come in for that.

What to do in an emergency?

You know, you've got a foster and it's three in the morning and something happens.

We have a process for that.

So we want to do that orientation so that you're as equipped as you possibly can be.

Once we've had a talk and we've been able to verify a few things, such as, you know, if someone has animals at home, we want to make sure those animals are are fixed so that we're not going to have any behavioral issues between, your dog and putting another dog in the house.

Things that you really just might not be able to see in a shelter setting.

I think their personality comes out more in that foster home, which is just so much easier for us to market.

And when you've got interested adopters that can better answer their questions, where is at the animals in the shelter?

It just came in three days ago.

I don't know what it's background is.

It's really our best guess, right?

As to a lot of these questions that people are going to give us.

So the foster homes, also allow us to kind of learn that animal, and then be able to relay that to potential adopters.

Trying is more than, you know, it gives a it gives a dog or a cat or whatever.

You're maybe fostering it gives them a place for at least a time so that they can come into the program and they're not sitting in a shelter environment or unfortunately, there are other situations they may be in.

The people at the animal shelter do a great job of, assessing the animals.

Like they can tell you this she's friendly with dogs.

She's not food aggressive.

There's all these different steps that they go through to, assess every dog that comes into the shelter.

but there's a lot you don't find out until you get them home.

Okay.

The nice thing is, we have a community of people who have different levels of experience in different levels of dog like I typically do big dogs versus, I have there's one person she's probably fostered over a thousand dogs, but she does small.

And so she knows, like her small dogs, that she has that that niche down.

And then, I've actually traded foster's before I had one person call me and say, hey, I've got this little husky puppy.

I cannot deal with it.

I was like, well, this is what I have right now.

And so we just met and traded dogs, and let the humane society know, like, hey, we're trading foster's.

But I will say every dog is different.

Every personality is different.

knowing if you have dogs in your home or you have cats knowing their preferences and how they're going to react.

It's an important thing to remember about fostering is you're never going to be asked to take an animal into your home that you're not comfortable with.

They'll always make sure they like I said, they assess the animals so they'll give you everything.

Like when I was getting her, there was another dog.

the foster coordinator was suggesting that she's like, no, this dog's food aggressive and you don't want to have to deal with that.

So I got Honey instead.

so they will never ask you to take a dog into your house that you're not comfortable with, or cat kitten, you know.

Well, one of the things is it's not a forever commitment.

So if you're not sure if you're on the fence, have the conversation with the Humane Society, having that conversation, saying, this is what I'm thinking, this is what I'm interested in.

And maybe you do a weekend and you say, hey, I'm going to be a temporary foster for the week while someone's on spring break.

because the thing is, you can try it out and if you absolutely it's not for you, that's okay.

And you can realize that.

But the easiest way to figure it out is to try it.

and so then you may say, oh, I didn't know this was awesome and I love it.

And ten years later, you're still fostering.

Or you may say, you know what?

This was it for us.

but I feel like if you're on the fence about it, really trying it out.

If you have a home that an animal could live in, if you've got a heart for it, it's really very rewarding.

I mean, it's saving animals.

You just can't.

I can't tell you how rewarding it is.

It's.

They appreciate it.

And every day you get to come home to the most love.

Yes.

All right, prove my point.

And you're going to prove my point.

If you think you might like to give animal fostering a try, contact your local animal shelter or humane society.

For WFSU Public Media, I'm Mike Plummer.