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Friday, July 18, 2014

Become A Pet Foster Parent {Summer Bucket List}


It's happening, it's really happening. We've completed all the steps to become a pet foster family. Now we get to welcome a new dog or puppy into our home (temporarily). If you didn't know, Charlie was the result of our first and only failed attempted at fostering. I'm vowing to be more successful this time around.



We made the decision to foster because of my daughter. She loves animals with all her being. She has enjoyed teaching Charlie new tricks, photographing him, and exploiting him on the Instagram. All kidding aside, she really enjoys all of those things and we felt this would be a great project for her. Plus it will fulfill a volunteer requirement for high school. We are hoping if this goes well she can apply her experience to college apps and scholarships. That's a little further down the road. She even started a blog to document her pet fostering and dog training experience. You can find it HERE.

The process to become a pet foster family was relatively easy. Our local animal shelter required current pets to have an updated rabies shot. Charlie was overdue, so we had to make a trip to Petco to visit the Vetco. Aren't they clever? Then, Charlie needed to be registered with the county. I actually didn't know this was a thing. If you are a pet owner you might want to look into whether your dog needs to be registered with the county you live in. Next, the shelter sent out a volunteer to our house to check our yard. Just to make sure we do not have poisonous plants or dangerous things for an animal to harm itself. We got the all clear.


Our last step was to check out the current listings on the animal shelter's website to pick a few favorites.  Then we went in for a meet n greet with Charlie. In the end we chose to foster a dog who was extremely timid, seemingly non-aggressive dog without a great chance at life. Hopefully, our time with him will bring him out of his shell and he will be more adoptable. Every Saturday we will take him to an adoption event at our local Petco where he spends the day. If he gets adopted, then we get another dog to foster. If he doesn't get so lucky, then we bring him home for another week. I love that we control the experience. I'm really looking forward to the challenges and rewards pet fostering will bring.

Here is Bear. He isn't the active dog his breed suggests he is. Our goal is to get him happy (confident). Then adopted!

Nicole
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4 comments:

  1. What a cutie pie! You're so brave for fostering, I would want to keep them all which my Husband would be less than thrilled about!

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  2. How fun, AND a unique thing to add to a Summer bucket list!

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  3. The world needs more families like you! My husband and I haven't been able to foster since we live in Base Housing, but we are buying a house when we PCS to Florida in December so we WILL be foster parents too! =]

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  4. What an awesome thing for your family to do :)

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