Animal Welfare Professionals

Its not necessarily a program, however we have tried "finder fosters" or "owner fosters" - where we agree to take on the animal(s) if the person with them now continues to foster them until adoption.

We have explained to these people that for certain animals - fostering could be many months (ie black adult pitbulls or bully breeds). It seems like every time we enter into an agreement with this situation, we get an email a week later about a "family emergency" or an incident that happened and they can no longer foster. Or they ask for someone to take the animal for a weekend and refuse to take it back. 
We are small. We are also now foster based and we have been caught in some really tough spots due to this.  Now it makes us real hesitant to agree to these situations, even if its an animal we think will adopt out quickly.

I don't know of a way to fix or change this. Unless we were to say - then keep your animal and find another rescue to help. Which would be a horrible thing to do. Mainly for the animal and the rescue reputation. At that point, I usually have choice words for that person so their feelings are 1000% irrelevant to me.

Sarah, this is exactly the kind of failure I was hoping people would be honest about, so thank you.

We hit the same wall, hard. We call it Finder-to-Foster, and early on we did it on a handshake, the way you described. Same result every time: the family emergency a week later, the "can you take him for the weekend" that turns into never taking him back. For a small foster-based group that isn't an inconvenience, it's a crisis, because the animal lands back on you with nowhere to go.

Here's what changed it for us, and none of it is about trusting people more. It's about building the arrangement so a bail can't sink you.

First, we require a foster application even for finder-fosters. It feels like friction, and some people balk at it, but the ones who balk are almost always the ones who would have bailed. The application is the filter.

Second, before the animal moves, there's a signed foster agreement that says the quiet parts out loud: the timeline could be months, here is who has placement authority, and if you need out you give us notice and a handoff, you do not drop the animal somewhere. It gives you standing when someone tries to dump.

Third, we line up a backup foster in parallel from day one. So when someone does bail, it's a phone call, not an emergency. We assume the bail will happen and build for it.

And fourth, for a lot of these we don't take custody at all. We run it as a Managed Rehoming case: the person keeps and houses the animal, and we run the placement, the listing, the screening, the support, all under a signed agreement. The animal stays their responsibility until a real adopter is ready. If they flake, it stays their situation to keep managing, not ours to absorb. For a small foster-based group, deciding when custody actually transfers is the single biggest thing that takes the risk off you.

You're right that "keep your animal and find another rescue" isn't something you can live with. So instead we made the bail survivable. You can't fix the people. You can make it so they can't take you down with them.

And for what it's worth, the choice words are valid. I've had them too.

Its not necessarily a program, however we have tried "finder fosters" or "owner fosters" - where we agree to take on the animal(s) if the person with them now continues to foster them until adoption.

We have explained to these people that for certain animals - fostering could be many months (ie black adult pitbulls or bully breeds). It seems like every time we enter into an agreement with this situation, we get an email a week later about a "family emergency" or an incident that happened and they can no longer foster. Or they ask for someone to take the animal for a weekend and refuse to take it back. 
We are small. We are also now foster based and we have been caught in some really tough spots due to this.  Now it makes us real hesitant to agree to these situations, even if its an animal we think will adopt out quickly.

I don't know of a way to fix or change this. Unless we were to say - then keep your animal and find another rescue to help. Which would be a horrible thing to do. Mainly for the animal and the rescue reputation. At that point, I usually have choice words for that person so their feelings are 1000% irrelevant to me.

we are a small foster based rescue in NC that adopts our about 800 dogs a year   All breeds  

For us, the hardest aspect of your safety list is that backup foster.  We don't have them.  If we did, we would be saving another dog.  We take back all of our owner returns that we previously adopted out so sadly - Foster's are tight 

we do require the app and the contract we we do finder to foster.  But yes, half of them flake especially since it can take a year for some adult dogs to find a home.  We turn down many of these and I fear dogs are euthanized or left on the street  

As for managed rehoming - we call that a courtesy post; however , we don't mange the vetting of the dog and don't collect an adoption fee.    We just advertise and help screen applicants  

I wonder if we should explore a hybrid approach to courtesy posts- could let them use our vet discount but require them to pay the catchup vetting costs? .   Offer ongoing free food and preventative?    And then charge a lower adoption fee that we each split? 

adoptions are down.  Surrenders are up.  Our email of found dogs and requests for help is horribly painful.  

I wonder if tweaking the managed rehoming approach could help 

Sarah, this is exactly the kind of failure I was hoping people would be honest about, so thank you.

We hit the same wall, hard. We call it Finder-to-Foster, and early on we did it on a handshake, the way you described. Same result every time: the family emergency a week later, the "can you take him for the weekend" that turns into never taking him back. For a small foster-based group that isn't an inconvenience, it's a crisis, because the animal lands back on you with nowhere to go.

Here's what changed it for us, and none of it is about trusting people more. It's about building the arrangement so a bail can't sink you.

First, we require a foster application even for finder-fosters. It feels like friction, and some people balk at it, but the ones who balk are almost always the ones who would have bailed. The application is the filter.

Second, before the animal moves, there's a signed foster agreement that says the quiet parts out loud: the timeline could be months, here is who has placement authority, and if you need out you give us notice and a handoff, you do not drop the animal somewhere. It gives you standing when someone tries to dump.

Third, we line up a backup foster in parallel from day one. So when someone does bail, it's a phone call, not an emergency. We assume the bail will happen and build for it.

And fourth, for a lot of these we don't take custody at all. We run it as a Managed Rehoming case: the person keeps and houses the animal, and we run the placement, the listing, the screening, the support, all under a signed agreement. The animal stays their responsibility until a real adopter is ready. If they flake, it stays their situation to keep managing, not ours to absorb. For a small foster-based group, deciding when custody actually transfers is the single biggest thing that takes the risk off you.

You're right that "keep your animal and find another rescue" isn't something you can live with. So instead we made the bail survivable. You can't fix the people. You can make it so they can't take you down with them.

And for what it's worth, the choice words are valid. I've had them too.

Its not necessarily a program, however we have tried "finder fosters" or "owner fosters" - where we agree to take on the animal(s) if the person with them now continues to foster them until adoption.

We have explained to these people that for certain animals - fostering could be many months (ie black adult pitbulls or bully breeds). It seems like every time we enter into an agreement with this situation, we get an email a week later about a "family emergency" or an incident that happened and they can no longer foster. Or they ask for someone to take the animal for a weekend and refuse to take it back. 
We are small. We are also now foster based and we have been caught in some really tough spots due to this.  Now it makes us real hesitant to agree to these situations, even if its an animal we think will adopt out quickly.

I don't know of a way to fix or change this. Unless we were to say - then keep your animal and find another rescue to help. Which would be a horrible thing to do. Mainly for the animal and the rescue reputation. At that point, I usually have choice words for that person so their feelings are 1000% irrelevant to me.

we are a small foster based rescue in NC that adopts our about 800 dogs a year   All breeds  

For us, the hardest aspect of your safety list is that backup foster.  We don't have them.  If we did, we would be saving another dog.  We take back all of our owner returns that we previously adopted out so sadly - Foster's are tight 

we do require the app and the contract we we do finder to foster.  But yes, half of them flake especially since it can take a year for some adult dogs to find a home.  We turn down many of these and I fear dogs are euthanized or left on the street  

As for managed rehoming - we call that a courtesy post; however , we don't mange the vetting of the dog and don't collect an adoption fee.    We just advertise and help screen applicants  

I wonder if we should explore a hybrid approach to courtesy posts- could let them use our vet discount but require them to pay the catchup vetting costs? .   Offer ongoing free food and preventative?    And then charge a lower adoption fee that we each split? 

adoptions are down.  Surrenders are up.  Our email of found dogs and requests for help is horribly painful.  

I wonder if tweaking the managed rehoming approach could help 

------------------------------
monica horvath
operations manager
paw-fect match rescue
NC
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 06-11-2026 04:58 PM
From: Bj Adkins
Subject: I'm writing a book about prevention programs. I need your failures more than your wins.

Sarah, this is exactly the kind of failure I was hoping people would be honest about, so thank you.

We hit the same wall, hard. We call it Finder-to-Foster, and early on we did it on a handshake, the way you described. Same result every time: the family emergency a week later, the "can you take him for the weekend" that turns into never taking him back. For a small foster-based group that isn't an inconvenience, it's a crisis, because the animal lands back on you with nowhere to go.

Here's what changed it for us, and none of it is about trusting people more. It's about building the arrangement so a bail can't sink you.

First, we require a foster application even for finder-fosters. It feels like friction, and some people balk at it, but the ones who balk are almost always the ones who would have bailed. The application is the filter.

Second, before the animal moves, there's a signed foster agreement that says the quiet parts out loud: the timeline could be months, here is who has placement authority, and if you need out you give us notice and a handoff, you do not drop the animal somewhere. It gives you standing when someone tries to dump.

Third, we line up a backup foster in parallel from day one. So when someone does bail, it's a phone call, not an emergency. We assume the bail will happen and build for it.

And fourth, for a lot of these we don't take custody at all. We run it as a Managed Rehoming case: the person keeps and houses the animal, and we run the placement, the listing, the screening, the support, all under a signed agreement. The animal stays their responsibility until a real adopter is ready. If they flake, it stays their situation to keep managing, not ours to absorb. For a small foster-based group, deciding when custody actually transfers is the single biggest thing that takes the risk off you.

You're right that "keep your animal and find another rescue" isn't something you can live with. So instead we made the bail survivable. You can't fix the people. You can make it so they can't take you down with them.

And for what it's worth, the choice words are valid. I've had them too.

------------------------------
Join The Shift To Prevention.

BJ Adkins
Founder/Director
Animal-Angels Foundation
Pinson, AL
calendy.com/animal-angels
bjadkins@animal-angels.org
animal-angelsfoundation.org
------------------------------



Original Message:
Sent: 06-11-2026 05:43 AM
From: Sarah Hoadley
Subject: I'm writing a book about prevention programs. I need your failures more than your wins.

Its not necessarily a program, however we have tried "finder fosters" or "owner fosters" - where we agree to take on the animal(s) if the person with them now continues to foster them until adoption.

We have explained to these people that for certain animals - fostering could be many months (ie black adult pitbulls or bully breeds). It seems like every time we enter into an agreement with this situation, we get an email a week later about a "family emergency" or an incident that happened and they can no longer foster. Or they ask for someone to take the animal for a weekend and refuse to take it back. 
We are small. We are also now foster based and we have been caught in some really tough spots due to this.  Now it makes us real hesitant to agree to these situations, even if its an animal we think will adopt out quickly.

I don't know of a way to fix or change this. Unless we were to say - then keep your animal and find another rescue to help. Which would be a horrible thing to do. Mainly for the animal and the rescue reputation. At that point, I usually have choice words for that person so their feelings are 1000% irrelevant to me.

------------------------------
Sarah
Paws in Middle Georgia Animal Rescue
------------------------------

Sadly, we have had to turn away all our dog returns since losing our building in December 2025.  We just do NOT have the fosters. All are large & XL adults. All were undersocialized or having aggression issues. Without a building, we just can't risk putting a dog that has bitten into a foster that has other pets or kids.  And no fosters want to take in large breeds. 

We have flyers at our events asking for fosters. We post a few times a week on social media about needing fosters. Nothing. Or the ones that apply don't vaccinate their animals, haven't gotten them fixed and we've had a few that have said - we don't have this dog fixed bc we plan on breeding. SMH

We are stumped on how to find dog fosters.  Even when we share in our volunteer group the horrible conditions a pup is living in and asking just one person to step up and be a foster - crickets.

------------------------------
Sarah
Paws in Middle Georgia Animal Rescue
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 06-19-2026 10:40 PM
From: monica horvath
Subject: I'm writing a book about prevention programs. I need your failures more than your wins.

we are a small foster based rescue in NC that adopts our about 800 dogs a year   All breeds  

For us, the hardest aspect of your safety list is that backup foster.  We don't have them.  If we did, we would be saving another dog.  We take back all of our owner returns that we previously adopted out so sadly - Foster's are tight 

we do require the app and the contract we we do finder to foster.  But yes, half of them flake especially since it can take a year for some adult dogs to find a home.  We turn down many of these and I fear dogs are euthanized or left on the street  

As for managed rehoming - we call that a courtesy post; however , we don't mange the vetting of the dog and don't collect an adoption fee.    We just advertise and help screen applicants  

I wonder if we should explore a hybrid approach to courtesy posts- could let them use our vet discount but require them to pay the catchup vetting costs? .   Offer ongoing free food and preventative?    And then charge a lower adoption fee that we each split? 

adoptions are down.  Surrenders are up.  Our email of found dogs and requests for help is horribly painful.  

I wonder if tweaking the managed rehoming approach could help 

------------------------------
monica horvath
operations manager
paw-fect match rescue
NC
------------------------------



Original Message:
Sent: 06-11-2026 04:58 PM
From: Bj Adkins
Subject: I'm writing a book about prevention programs. I need your failures more than your wins.

Sarah, this is exactly the kind of failure I was hoping people would be honest about, so thank you.

We hit the same wall, hard. We call it Finder-to-Foster, and early on we did it on a handshake, the way you described. Same result every time: the family emergency a week later, the "can you take him for the weekend" that turns into never taking him back. For a small foster-based group that isn't an inconvenience, it's a crisis, because the animal lands back on you with nowhere to go.

Here's what changed it for us, and none of it is about trusting people more. It's about building the arrangement so a bail can't sink you.

First, we require a foster application even for finder-fosters. It feels like friction, and some people balk at it, but the ones who balk are almost always the ones who would have bailed. The application is the filter.

Second, before the animal moves, there's a signed foster agreement that says the quiet parts out loud: the timeline could be months, here is who has placement authority, and if you need out you give us notice and a handoff, you do not drop the animal somewhere. It gives you standing when someone tries to dump.

Third, we line up a backup foster in parallel from day one. So when someone does bail, it's a phone call, not an emergency. We assume the bail will happen and build for it.

And fourth, for a lot of these we don't take custody at all. We run it as a Managed Rehoming case: the person keeps and houses the animal, and we run the placement, the listing, the screening, the support, all under a signed agreement. The animal stays their responsibility until a real adopter is ready. If they flake, it stays their situation to keep managing, not ours to absorb. For a small foster-based group, deciding when custody actually transfers is the single biggest thing that takes the risk off you.

You're right that "keep your animal and find another rescue" isn't something you can live with. So instead we made the bail survivable. You can't fix the people. You can make it so they can't take you down with them.

And for what it's worth, the choice words are valid. I've had them too.

------------------------------
Join The Shift To Prevention.

BJ Adkins
Founder/Director
Animal-Angels Foundation
Pinson, AL
calendy.com/animal-angels
bjadkins@animal-angels.org
animal-angelsfoundation.org
------------------------------




Original Message:
Sent: 06-11-2026 05:43 AM
From: Sarah Hoadley
Subject: I'm writing a book about prevention programs. I need your failures more than your wins.

Its not necessarily a program, however we have tried "finder fosters" or "owner fosters" - where we agree to take on the animal(s) if the person with them now continues to foster them until adoption.

We have explained to these people that for certain animals - fostering could be many months (ie black adult pitbulls or bully breeds). It seems like every time we enter into an agreement with this situation, we get an email a week later about a "family emergency" or an incident that happened and they can no longer foster. Or they ask for someone to take the animal for a weekend and refuse to take it back. 
We are small. We are also now foster based and we have been caught in some really tough spots due to this.  Now it makes us real hesitant to agree to these situations, even if its an animal we think will adopt out quickly.

I don't know of a way to fix or change this. Unless we were to say - then keep your animal and find another rescue to help. Which would be a horrible thing to do. Mainly for the animal and the rescue reputation. At that point, I usually have choice words for that person so their feelings are 1000% irrelevant to me.

------------------------------
Sarah
Paws in Middle Georgia Animal Rescue
------------------------------