Animal Welfare Professionals

We are a small foster based rescue in the southeast. 
Spay & neuter is not enforced and there are a lot of people that don't believe it. Some counties that do have animal control don't fix the animals before adoption.

I say this to get to my main point. What are the requirements your organization has for your fosters? 

We get a lot of great applications that usually have one thing or another that has prevented us from approving. At this time, we are down to 5 full time fosters for dogs and desperately need to bring on new fosters before we lose those to burn out.

Current foster requirements: all animals in the home are altered, current on all vaccinations, current on flea/tick/HW medication, reliable transportation to bring their foster to vetting and meet and greets, and depending on the dog - a fenced yard.

The primary issue is spay/neuter. We currently do not allow adoptions or fosters to have unaltered pets unless they have something from the vet that advises against it (medical situations usually). 

Would it be irresponsible to waive that requirement for fosters? Put other stipulations in place. For example, if they have an unaltered female dog, they could only foster dogs already altered or females?  What about if they have an unaltered cat and are applying to foster a dog?

Any other ideas of ways to get qualified dog fosters?

Hi,

Thanks for posting!

I've been looking at research on this lately, as we have some relevant findings from our 2024 National Foster Survey that we're hoping to publish (basically, the more requirements an organization has for foster onboarding, the smaller their foster programs tend to be).  Also some links to studies that may be helpful:

2024 National Foster Survey Report

2022 National Foster Survey Report

Some of the relevant research and guidance:

• Do Policy Based Adoptions Increase the Care a Pet Receives? An Exploration of a Shift to Conversation Based Adoptions at One Shelter  Taking a conversation-based approach rather than a policy-based approach to adoptions does not impact the quality of care the animal receives or its bond with its owner and is also unlikely to impact the quality of care in a home
  
  
• Association of Shelter Veterinarians' Guidelines for Standards of Care in Animal Shelters "Imposing strict policies or requirements on adopters (e.g. employment status, landlord checks, home visits, and veterinary references) is discriminatory, prolongs LOS in the shelter, and prevents future adoptions"
  
  
• https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/9/9/666 There is a potential link between having an extensive foster screening process and high attrition during onboarding, implying that reducing the time it takes to place animals in foster care may increase potential for foster care placements overall.   
  
  
• https://www.childrenaustralia.org.au/journal/article/1221 In child welfare, delayed responses to foster inquiries have been shown to adversely effect recruitment efforts. 
  
  
• A Mixed-Methods Exploration Of Opportunities For Barriers And Bias During Off Site Animal Adoption Events  Screening of adopters may eliminate qualified potential fosters for economic, cultural or other reasons through unconscious bias.
  
  
• Racial Disparities in Animal Welfare Socioeconomic factors may play a role in the adoption process. On average, dogs tended to be adopted into areas with a significantly higher percentage of white residents than where they were initially retrieved

Also check out the research and information on CARE's website.

Email me anytime: duer@maddiesfund.org

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Kelly Duer
Senior Shelter Solutions Specialist
Maddie's Fund
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I admire you for bringing this up for discussion. It shows courage to be willing to challenge your beliefs and procedures. 

When we put a barrier in between a pet and help that they need, whether that help is adoption, spay/neuter surgery, a foster home, or anything else, we need to be darn sure that barrier is justified. 

In animal welfare, we tend to be risk averse on behalf of animals, particularly those in our care. It's understandable, but we can get laser focused on that in a way that ends up backfiring. We often make restrictive policy decisions based on a rare incident or conjecture. Those policies might occasionally prevent something we're afraid of. They're also consistently causing damage to animals we can't help because our barriers have limited our capacity.  

I encourage you to ask yourself and others within your organization, what is the purpose of each requirement? Keep asking the question until you drill down to the core need. (For example, we often require a fenced yard when what we want is for a pet to get adequate exercise, or not to be tethered.) 

In this case, f the concern is fosters and household pets reproducing, the solution you suggested could prevent that without a blanket policy. 

If the worry is that people with intact pets are seen as irresponsible with pets in general, that's a common bias in our field, not an established problem. All we really know is that these prospective fosters have at least one pet that isn't altered. That doesn't tell us if they can provide the foster pet with the care they need. (There are many reasons for having an intact pet, not least among them, these days, the lack of adequate access to spay/neuter.) What, specifically, do you need foster parents to perform? Those should be your foster requirements. 

Having these kinds of conversations and making policy changes is difficult, to put it mildly. One of the tenets of change management is that we are more open to change as the status quo becomes more uncomfortable. When it comes to removing barriers, the discomfort that prompts movement usually comes from the recognition that those barriers are limiting lifesaving by keeping animals from accessing your services. Bringing and keeping those animals into conversations with decision-makers and opinion-leaders could be very helpful.

I'd be happy to chat about this offline, if that would help. It's a lot to navigate! 

Karen

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Karen Green, CAWA
askkarengreen.com
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