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Hi folks,
I tried my darndest to find similar posts but to no avail since I'm guessing it's not something most programs want to talk about.
- Has anyone had instances with foster animals escaping from their foster homes, and if so, how do you address it?
- What are your protocols around escaped animals?
- How many animals have escaped from your foster programs over the last 2 years?
The program I work with does not do home checks, and it's too high volume to have that be a reasonable task for staff.
Even so, I feel like home checks would not have prevented any of the escapees I've seen (they're all due to unforeseen circumstances or plain human error).
For reference, out of the roughly 4,225 animals that we've had in our foster program from the last 2 years, only 6 have escaped; 4 cats and 2 dogs (and we found all but 2 of the cats). Those 4,225 animals came to about 5,850 foster assignments (since some needed multiple foster homes).
At the end of the day, that's only about 0.10% - 0.14% of our foster animals but it seems like whenever we do have one escape, staff act like it's a common occurrence (though I'm guessing it's because folks are prone to focus on the negative).
Either way, I'd love everyone's input and/or advice with this!
Thank you for your time 🙏
#FosterPrograms