To the original poster: you asked what we wish fosters knew, and what came back included nine numbered items about what fosters get wrong. So let me say first that Devon's list is the most useful post in this thread and I would hand it to every foster I onboard. Nothing below is a disagreement with her.
But her number one deserves a longer answer than it got, because she is right that it is the biggest one.
Seven hundred people on a roster who want healthy, social kittens, two at a time. That is not selfishness. Nearly every time I have dug into it, it is fear wearing the costume of preference. People pick the easy animal because nobody ever taught them how to handle a hard one, and the cost of getting it wrong lands on their own dog, their own kid, their own carpet. You cannot scold somebody into competence. If we want fosters to take the shy adult, the nursing mom, the ringworm litter, the skill has to be built before the ask is made.
That is the piece I would add to this thread. Most foster programs are structured as a one-way ask. Take this animal, follow these protocols, report these symptoms, return on this date. Everything moves from the organization to the foster as instruction, and the only thing moving back is labor. Then we are surprised that retention is thin and everyone wants the easy ones.
We run a program called Foster-to-Train. The foster does not just house the dog, they are taught basic obedience work and they do it with the animal in their own home. Three things happen at once. The dog reaches adoption with manners instead of kennel stress, which widens the pool of homes that can take him. The foster walks away with a skill they keep for life, including for their own animals. And the foster stops feeling like unpaid boarding and starts feeling like part of the outcome.
I suggested the same thing to BC SPCA earlier this year, that fosters be trained in basic obedience for the dogs in their care. The training is not an add-on to support. The training IS the support.
The other half is follow-up, and I mean the kind nobody asked for. Most programs wait for the foster to call. But a new foster does not know what rises to the level of a phone call, so they sit on the things that matter and panic about the things that do not. Devon named both halves of that in the same list, the emergency line rung over eye discharge and the diarrhea left to run ten days. Those look like opposite problems. They are the same problem. The foster is guessing, because nobody told them where the line is.
Call them first. A two-minute text on day three asking how it is going costs almost nothing, and it moves the foster from drop-off point to part of the team. People who feel forgotten do not reach out. People who feel like part of the team reach out early, which is the only point where we can still do something about it. Scheduled check-ins are cheaper than the emergency they prevent, and cheaper than recruiting the replacement for a foster who quietly burned out and never told you why.
Nicole, to your actual question about what we hand fosters up front: the decompression guide and the behavior-notes checklist both earn their keep, and I would build both. But the highest-return thing is teaching the human. A guide tells a foster what to do. A skill tells them what to do next time, when the situation is not on the page.
Michelle and Devon, one more thing, said with real respect for how tired you both sound in these posts. When the same nine failures turn up at every organization in the country, that is not seven hundred bad fosters. That is a training gap the field has never closed, and all of us are paying for it one frustrated phone call at a time.
And to the original poster, since you are the one who asked: you are two months in and you thought to ask this question at all. That tells me which kind of foster you are going to be.
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Join The Shift To Prevention.
BJ Adkins
Founder/Director
Animal-Angels Foundation
Pinson, AL
calendy.com/animal-angels
bjadkins@animal-angels.organimal-angelsfoundation.org
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-20-2026 02:01 PM
From: Michelle Flowers (She/Her)
Subject: What do you wish you could tell Fosters, or wish they would know?
Devon,
Yes yes and YES!! Fostering is not for everyone - and that's Ok. I am a Foster Program Manager, and during this difficult kitten season (and every kitten season is challenging!) I keep thinking, "We are here to provide you training and support, but you are also here to help us and not make our lives a lot harder." I get that if you're new you are still learning. I am absolutely willing to teach you. Our org is known for providing great support for our foster homes. We provide supplies. We have platforms that help you assess levels of concern and avoid panic - IF you use them! Our onboarding materials go over Everything! We give you detailed first-day instructions. Yet many people want to challenge our protocols or ignore them or they only want "healthy kittens" (which we can never promise!) or 1 kitten at a time, or they can't deal with diarrhea. Or they leave town for 3 days and leave the husband to care for weaning kittens that aren't eating enough and then he needs to go to a football game all day. And if you want to adopt, go ahead and adopt! There are so many animals ready and waiting for homes, so many choices. You will find a connection and a good fit. (I'm not referring to foster "fails" which... we've all done, ha!) Rescue work is not a glowing, Instagram world. We are trying to save sick, vulnerable animals, often with behavioral challenges, getting them through their toughest days sometimes. We are short-staffed and only have so much time and energy. We are constantly prioritizing level of urgency. Please follow our lead. We have been doing this awhile and we have seen what can happen. These protocols were not designed on a whim. We are protecting YOU and your resident animals as well as our own. Be willing to learn, be flexible, ask questions, communicate. You may experience the heartbreak, but if you are open, you will also experience the reward of actual rescue work. Also, my regular foster homes are GOLD, and I cannot say enough good about them! Every year we add more of them, and it really is one of the most rewarding things about the job. There is mutual support and intention. Priceless.
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Michelle Flowers
Foster Program Manager
Seattle Area Feline Rescue
UW-AAB
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-19-2026 07:21 AM
From: Devon Smith
Subject: What do you wish you could tell Fosters, or wish they would know?
I'm a jaded staffer, so these may feel jarring but are pretty consistent across orgs I've been with. These are things that differentiate the magical fosters who "get it" from the fosters who we sometimes avoid picking up the phone when they call ;)
- Be willing to foster what needs you, and learn how to foster what needs you, don't just offer to foster the easiest animals. This is the biggest one, without question. We have a roster of 700 people who want to foster healthy, cute, fluffy, social kittens, 2 at a time and no more. We need that .0001% of the time. If you want to truly make a difference, as opposed to having a cute hobby for yourself, foster moms with nursing babies; kittens and puppies who are sick, INCLUDING zoonotic stuff; foster bottle babies; FOSTER ADULTS; foster pets who need some slightly advanced care, like injections or fluids; foster shy ones who need socialization. It may feel overwhelming at first, but you can learn, and that's where you will make the biggest difference. And do not ever, ever ask to foster a specific color or breed of animal unless you want to be gossiped about ;)
- Keep your pets separate from foster animals, and keep them up to date on vaccines. Shelters have no idea what these animals have been exposed to, and we cannot control symptoms breaking out after they go into your home. Have a separate room; do not let them out of the room, no matter how much you want to; wash your hands well after handling your fosters. Fostering has inherent risk to your animals - it's low, but not non-existent, and you have to accept that risk and not throw the shelter under the bus for it.
- If your shelter has an emergency foster line, don't call it unless it's truly, truly an emergency (your foster is actively gasping for breath!). Needing more supplies is not an emergency. Eye discharge is not an emergency. A touch of diarrhea is not an emergency. Use regular communication channels (email, main phone, etc) for those things. Do not wake up the foster coordinator at 3am because you need more of an antibiotic.
- DO be a good communicator though! Don't let diarrhea go for 10 days and then return a cat with diarrhea. Report new symptoms clearly (what they are, when they started, how many animals they're affecting in a litter). Be ready to bring in a fecal sample or the cat for a check-up. We assume everything is fine if we don't hear these things. But also, keep a balance - don't call every day with a new symptom or worry! Communicating with fosters is a HUGE job, so if it's something you can figure out yourself, do!
- Let your org know when you're available to foster - don't wait for them to contact you, and (related to #1) don't ask for something specific. Reaching out to an entire group of fosters, or your main social media followers, every single time you need a foster for one pet is inefficient and hard. If I know Linda just called me this morning to let us know her foster room is ready, and I have a nursing kitten come in an hour later, I don't need to reach out to and answer questions from my roster of 700; I can reach out to Linda and get the kitten out quickly.
- If your foster coordinator says "I need a foster for this group of 5 kittens who have a cold; they need to be picked up today before 2pm and returned on the 10th at 9am," do not email or call and ask: can I take 2 of the 5? Can I return on the 9th? Can I pick up tomorrow? When the coordinator has put out a broad call, she is likely to then have to answer 100 emails and calls asking things she's already made clear. Reduce that to 99 emails and pay attention to what she's asked, and only respond if you can help with that situation (if you're ready for a foster but can't do that particular one, the next day send a note saying 'I'm ready for a foster, but can only take them until the 8th!').
- Foster ringworm kittens! It's the hardest illness to clear up in the shelter; and the one that the fewest number of fosters are willing to take. Ringworm is zoonotic, but primarily affects other pets and humans who are prone to it (compromised immune systems, etc). So don't panic about it, you can likely foster these guys without it spreading in your home!
- Be able to follow the rules of the org for fostering, even if it's hard. The one that we struggle with is fading kittens; and the natural urge of fosters to want to rush everything to an ER. That would bankrupt an org so quickly, and almost never saves the pet anyway. We give our kitten fosters a fading kitten pack and instructions on what to do, and we get them to us as quickly as possible. Don't be disheartened by this, or think your org doesn't care. They simply cannot take on a $5,000 emergency bill for every foster kitten. And as hard as we try, the vulnerable kittens we deal with will sometimes die :( The org will be sympathetic if that happens to your foster; be sympathetic to them, even if you didn't understand why they made all the decisions they did (but feel free to ask why, to, if it helps you grieve and process).
- Thank you for fostering <3 It makes a massive difference to the animals. Sick pets get healthier faster in a foster home; unsocial animals get socialized faster in a foster home; and you open up space for others to come in that we couldn't take otherwise. You're doing hero work!
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Devon Smith
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