Foster Volunteers

As a foster, you provide a safe and loving environment for feeding, care, and socialization. A separate room or space is needed to keep foster animals separate from your personal pets, and transportation to and from HSSC is needed for vaccines and medical check-ups. We ask that fosters follow our guidelines on feeding, training, and medicating your foster pet, as provided by HSSC staff.

At this time we are only able to accept fosters living within a 25-mile radius of HSSC.

Foster families are needed for animals not ready for adoption yet, whether they are sick, underage, injured, or under-socialized. We especially need foster for bottle babies and nursing moms, a very delicate age needing round-the-clock care.

Not a problem! We can walk you through the process and if you are willing to learn we are always willing to teach. HSSC staff is happy to answer any questions or help train on specific tasks like bottle feeding, cat and dog behavior, or proper socializing.

HSSC provides veterinary care, medications, food, litter, toys, bedding, and a crate. All items will need to be returned at the time of drop off, but if you purchased supplies for your foster pet you are welcome to keep them for the next foster. We appreciate the generosity of our fosters always willing to help!

Foster dogs can be taken in public on a case-by-case basis, considering their age and behavior. While socializing is very important, we do not want to put dogs in potentially uncomfortable situations. Foster dogs should never be brought to dog parks, as there is the strong possibility of unvaccinated dogs, disease, intestinal parasites, or dog fights. Walking trails and public parks are great places for dogs to be seen by the public and meet new people, but we ask that you do not introduce them to other dogs unless you have been trained to do so. Foster cats and kittens should always be indoors in your home, traveling can be very stressful for them.

Absolutely! Foster parents get the first opportunity to adopt is that the animal is not available for adoption or listed on our website. We ask that if you are interested in adopting you tell us as soon as possible so that we can let adoptions staff know.