Why Foster?
Waymaker Rescue, like most rescue organizations, was started to help give abused/stray/neglected animals an opportunity to live in the care of people with great respect for the lives of animals. We rescue dogs wandering around Cherokee and Adair Counties, owner surrenders, elderly, and hospice patients. Many of these dogs have been rejected because they were no longer wanted by their previous owners, or released because the owner moved. Rejection by an owner and denial of a caring hand have a profound psychological impact on the rescued dog’s personality. Many of these dogs have trust issues in the presence of unfamiliar people.
Many habits are formed due to the abuse given by previous owners or simply by living on their own for an extended period of time. The rejected dog may be more aggressive, regress from house training, and suffer from separation anxiety. The stray dog has been denied a loving hand from birth. They are never touched with kindness. When they are touched, it was most likely aggressive and painful. Most stray dogs are not properly socialized and might have lived with a vicious pecking order in a wild pack. Many have to fight for the available food and water, and do not have access to climate controlled environments. .
What is Foster Care?
Our organization is always in need of volunteers, most of all, foster homes for dogs. Fostering dogs is the best way to help one or more animals become acclimated to living with people. Fostering dogs that has been neglected and/or abused can be challenging; They can test your patience and tolerance to the limit. Fostering responsibility means taking a psychologically damaged dog, and getting it ready for adoption into a forever home. Foster dogs are not house trained, can be destructive because they did not learn any boundaries, and can have aggression issues. As you can see, we are not looking for baby sitters, but rather people who understand the needs of abused and neglected animals. A foster parent is a person who is willing to put in extensive time to work with these animals and watch them blossom into the wonderful companions they can be. Finally, a foster parent must be willing to let go of their foster dog to a new forever home when they know it is going to be a perfect fit.
Who can Foster?
The type of people we are looking for to foster dogs should have past or current experience caring for a dog, preferably, people who are familiar with nurturing a previously abused animal. Everyone in the family should be committed to you fostering dogs. We prefer a stay-at-home parent for fostering. A foster parent needs to be adept at taking pictures and hopefully video clips to update the dog's adoption site. Proper paperwork and keeping receipts for re-imbursement, volunteering at adoption events, dealing with the public, and representation of our group is crucial to the organization. Fostering does not mean “test driving” the dog to see if it is going to be a good fit for your family. These dogs are traumatized and harmed by multiple environment changes. When you bring a dog into your home, the expectation is it will stay with you until its perfect forever home is found.