Animal Welfare Professionals

#FieldServicesandPublicSafety*
#FosterPrograms

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Danielle Griggs
Foster Care/ Rescue group Manager
AWL Animal Welfare League South Australia
AP
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Hi Danielle, 

I'd love to hear from everyone else on this too, but I have some resources for you in the meantime. I don't believe a formal risk assessment has been done, but there is research on short-term foster that has shown very few bites. You can find links to the research in the document linked here.

You can find best practices in this toolkit.   Generally, organizations only  offer their easiest-to-handle dogs to the public for field trips, at least until they get a sense of their skill levels at handling, which can help prevent incidents. Here are some other resources you might want to check out:

St. Hubert's field trip program (3 min. video)

Fredericksburg SPCA's Adventure Tails program (2 min. video)

Beyond the Shelter: Expanding Foster Capacity with Foster Innovation at SBCAS (60 min. video)

I'm happy to chat with you more about this too--you can email me at duer@maddiesfund.org

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Kelly Duer
Senior Shelter Solutions Specialist
Maddie's Fund
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We did not do a risk assessment prior. We were very hesitant and nervous about it, I won't lie. We visited a nearby municipal shelter who does a similar program and when we asked all our fears, they said they just had to be okay with not controlling every single element.  We started it with limiting it to a few select adoptable dogs. As it became more popular we opened it to all available dogs we have. I will say we started the program in April 2024 and have only had 1 bite occur that happened to be from our longest term resident. We allow the public to bring their dog to meet our prior to taking home as well. We do conversation based adoption and counseling regard introductions. The biggest issue we have had is dogs getting loose from their fosters. I have a manual I send out with every trip that has any information they would need regarding a dog getting loose, bites, behavior issues, etc. Our county has a non emergency telecommunications number that dispatches our on call officers, and that is our back up plan for after hours issues. That way the on call officer can get in touch with leadership and make the call on what should be done. They also sign  a waiver. I will attach what we have to this reply. Mutual Rescue has a great starter kit online as well. It helped me make the manual for ours. 

I hope this helps! 

Here is what our stats looked like from April 2024 to the end of the year. Today we hit our 60th adoption through the program! 

2024 Yearly Stats
5 Barks
Total Dogs Thru Program		82
Adopted Thru Program		49
Overall Trips		124
Returned		2
LTR Adopted Thru		19
Program Started 4/21/2024
LTR Adopted Thru LOS 60+ Days

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McKenzie Cook
Canine Placement Coordinator
Lincoln County Animal Services
Lincolnton NC
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thanks so much for all the responses, I really appreciate this.

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Danielle Griggs
Foster Care/ Rescue group Manager
AWL Animal Welfare League South Australia
AP
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-05-2025 01:49 PM
From: McKenzie Cook
Subject: Doggy Day Out

We did not do a risk assessment prior. We were very hesitant and nervous about it, I won't lie. We visited a nearby municipal shelter who does a similar program and when we asked all our fears, they said they just had to be okay with not controlling every single element.  We started it with limiting it to a few select adoptable dogs. As it became more popular we opened it to all available dogs we have. I will say we started the program in April 2024 and have only had 1 bite occur that happened to be from our longest term resident. We allow the public to bring their dog to meet our prior to taking home as well. We do conversation based adoption and counseling regard introductions. The biggest issue we have had is dogs getting loose from their fosters. I have a manual I send out with every trip that has any information they would need regarding a dog getting loose, bites, behavior issues, etc. Our county has a non emergency telecommunications number that dispatches our on call officers, and that is our back up plan for after hours issues. That way the on call officer can get in touch with leadership and make the call on what should be done. They also sign  a waiver. I will attach what we have to this reply. Mutual Rescue has a great starter kit online as well. It helped me make the manual for ours. 

I hope this helps! 

Here is what our stats looked like from April 2024 to the end of the year. Today we hit our 60th adoption through the program! 

2024 Yearly Stats
5 Barks
Total Dogs Thru Program		82
Adopted Thru Program		49
Overall Trips		124
Returned		2
LTR Adopted Thru		19
Program Started 4/21/2024
LTR Adopted Thru LOS 60+ Days

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McKenzie Cook
Canine Placement Coordinator
Lincoln County Animal Services
Lincolnton NC
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