Foster Parenting

Welcome to the world of fostering with A New Hope! It is our job as foster parents to help animals recover from the stress of being in a shelter, sickness or behavior challenge to prepare them for their lasting homes. While in our foster care, we also want to provide the training, guidance and socialization to help them be the best companion animal they can be. While dogs are in our care, our expectation is that they are being appropriately prepared and trained for their new adoptive homes.

* It is expected that dogs are crate trained, relationship-building and basic obedience trained using positive and treat motivation.
* If there are behavior and/or medical issues, they need to be corrected before placement. A New Hope will provide treatment plans.

If you are fostering a bully breed and there are other dogs in the home, the foster bully is never to be left alone with your dogs unsupervised. Please note also that all our bullies must become good citizens in public before adoption placement.

Start the fostering process by filling out the Foster Application for dogs or cats.

Foster Guidelines

Equipment:
We can help you with the tools and training guidance. Crates are available for crate training, potty training and household management. Every foster is provided a crate – all our dogs are expected to be crate trained. Dogs who are crate trained are returned less often than dogs who are not crate trained. Please let us know if you need training tools (collars or gentle leaders), etc.

Vaccines and Pick Up:
All animals coming from PCAS are vaccinated and will have had rabies vaccine unless they are a puppy. If you are picking the dog up directly from PCAS, be sure to get a copy of the kennel card, the temperament evaluation and the owner surrender information (if it exists). Also, please make a copy for my records or give me the original. Puppies will have at least two series of vaccinations before placement.

Food:
please only feed high quality food - no foods from the local supermarket as these typically either cause or make food allergies worse. A New Hope can help provide food for your foster animal if you need. We prefer to have Natural Balance or higher premium foods feed.

Foster Dog Training:
A New Hope offers foster dog training classes for foster parents, volunteers and prospective adopters on Sundays in Loomis. With relationship-based training using positive reinforcement, dogs learn to give their handlers their full attention and are desensitized to the presence of other dogs. Visit the Training page for more information on Foster Dog Training.

Medical Care and Emergency:
please call Lynn Howe 916 768 5981 (cell phone) anytime if an emergency occurs. All medical care or vet visits must be approved by A New Hope before seeking care. Based on the situation, we will approve emergency care. Our vet of choice in general is Loomis Basin Vet Clinic. If you are located in Auburn, we can use AMC Vet Clinic. Loomis Basin Vet Clinic phone number is 916 652 5816. Approved vet bills are reimbursed or paid directly by A New Hope.

Adjusting to Your Home:
It is important that every dog being pulled by ANAH be given the chance to decompress from the shelter environment and transition to your home for a period of time (two weeks is customary). It is NOT our goal to integrate the dog into your home pack and we want to minimize dog-to-dog and dog-to-cat introductions until the dog has had a time to relax and has been approved for such interactions. All such introductions must be done slowly over a period of two weeks and never is the shelter dog allowed to be left unattended with your home animals.

Meeting your other dogs:
We recommend very slow introductions with other dogs and cats in your home.(If you are fostering a puppy, then we do not want any meetings with unfamiliar other dogs as they do not have ample antibodies to withstand illness). In general, we require that the dog not be immediately integrated in with the resident pack to enable a successful integration for at least 10 days to 2 weeks. Your foster’s crate should be set up in an area where they can still feel like they are part of the family, but so that the resident dogs do not have direct access to the crate. If you need to, set up a second defense barrier like a baby gate in front of the crate. The introduction with the resident dogs will be more successful the slower you proceed and allow the resident dogs to understand that this dog is part of the household also. If you need to determine if the dogs will be friendly before you take the foster home, we’ll arrange a meeting away from your home at an objective location. We’ll parallel walk the dogs together, but not allowing them to touch and my allow initial interaction (touching) based on how they react. However, regardless of the positive meeting, we do not want the dogs to be together in your home or yard for the first week at least to avoid any potential problems. AND we never want the dogs to be left alone together unsupervised.

If after a week or two, the foster is integrated into the pack (except for bullies!):

* Do not feed your foster and other animals together, this creates competition and stress in the home.
* Do not leave chew bones, etc. around the house and always pick them up if they are in the dog's crate.
* Never leave your foster alone with your house cats. Cat introductions need to be done very slowly. Do not allow your foster and resident dogs access to other animals that they may chase. Its our responsibility to keep everyone safe in our homes!

Meeting your children:
If you have children, always supervise when small children are around your foster dog: as we can not know how the dog will ultimately react to children. Do not let children try to take toys, food, or chewies away from the dog.

Nothing in Life is Free and General Guidelines
We'll provide a training manual for training tips and we recommend that foster parents practice "Nothing in Life is Free" (pamphlet provided). This will help position you as the benevolent leader. We never hit or man handle our fosters. Violence begets violence, but we do establish ourselves as the leaders by practicing NILIF, good leadership practices (see Leadership Handout) and by establishing a positive relationship (Watch me’s, controlling resources –you are the giver of all good things, etc.).

* Please do not allow the dog to be mouthy or to play tug of war with you. No face slapping or rough play.
* Also, no dog parks for our foster dogs and do not let the dog off leash in an unfenced area.

Always practice good leadership (pamphlet provided). As much as we want to love on these fosters, we can "kill them with love". They need to learn to be good citizens.

Crate Training:
Make the crate were he gets everything of value to him - dinner, kong, rawhides, bully sticks! The crate needs to be placed in your home where the family spends the most time!

And, never leave a dog in a crate outside in the heat! Always make the crate a fun and comfortable place where a dog gets his treats. To help him enter the crate, you can toss high-value treats into the crate before him. Be sure to give him toys, kongs, and rawhides each time he goes into the crate. Don't forget that a dog will get bored with the same old toys, its always good to rotate them. I also recommend leaving the TV on for company. To help a dog get accustomed to the crate, its a good idea to introduce him to the crate in short intervals, so he has a chance to slowly adjust. (See Crate Training guide.)

Puppies:
Puppies should never be left alone more than one hour for every month of their age plus one hour. We want to make sure the pups are well socialized with a variety of people handling them, to be on a variety of surfaces and to hear a variety of sounds during their foster time with you!

Foster Dog Trainings, Sundays in Loomis:
If you are fostering a pit bull or pit bull mix, you’ll need to attend the foster dog training classes in Loomis on Sundays at 4:30 pm.

Getting your dog adopted:
We promote our dogs on multiple websites and foster parents are expected to bring their dogs to Petco each Saturday from 11:30 till 2:30 to show them to the public and enhance their socialization. In addition, you’ll need to be available to show your dog to prospective adopters by appointment.

Petco is located at 1917 Douglas Boulevard, Roseville. Before a dog will be able to go home, they must be spayed or neutered. Contact Lynn Howe for a list of participating vets. Please note that we support early spay and neutering for puppies and kittens. All puppies and kittens will be altered and microchipped before placement.