Many animals wait alone in shelters every year. Every day, they watch people walk by, hoping for a bit of attention. Some animals get played with and still do not get taken home. However, during the cold winter months, people tend not to think about the animals in shelters who are waiting for a warm loving home. Although not everyone is ready to adopt a pet, fostering animals can be a good alternative. This gets animals out of the shelter for an extended period of time and helps them gain skills that adopters are looking for.
Animal shelters are almost always overcrowded. If people can, they should help the shelters for the animals. Animals deserve loving homes and at least a chance to live. Some of the benefits of fostering include making the animals feel loved, possibly the first time in their lives and reducing the overcrowding in the shelter, which means better care for the animals that cannot get adopted.
Some may be concerned that fostering animals will not get adopted because they are not in the shelter when potential adopters visit. However, the potential adopters can see the animals before committing to adopting them. The animals are still actively shown on the shelters’ websites.
There may be some potential problems in fostering animals, such as animals who are not housebroken destroying the person’s belongings, but fostering can be an opportunity to teach these animals better behaviors, making these animals more likely to be adopted. Another potential problem is the person may get attached to the animal, and the animal may get attached to the person. But this, too, can be positive. The person who fosters an animal can adopt that animal he or she really wants to. Either way, fostering or adopting, the reward is in knowing the animal survived another day in their journey to a forever home.
According to hsjc.org, “Your willingness to foster an animal could mean the difference between euthanasia and the time needed to find a loving animal a permanent home.” No animal deserves to be euthanized, especially when overcrowding or the inability to find a home is the reason. There are many places where people can make arrangements to foster an animal, such as Indy Humane, the Humane Society of Johnson County and others. The great thing is that you people can foster animals when they want and however many they want, in respect to each organization’s guidelines. The organization is flexible about people’s schedules.
Fostering can be vital to animals’ survival.
During the winter months, according to The Daily Star, which is based in New York, the shelters are so busy taking in animals because it is so cold outside, so they need somewhere to put them. The animals deserve to be in a warm loving home rather than a cold and lonely cage. Being a part of the Greyhound community should make the students, faculty, staff and alumni of the University of Indianapolis even more. Imagine Grady being stuck in a cage with only a bed and food and water. Animals in shelters do not get to go out and play as often as pets at home. All animals deserve to be loved and cared for the way Grady is.
After the winter months, animals still need and deserve to be fostered. The animals are there for cuddles, to play with and are always excited when the person comes home. To foster, a person has to be at least 18-years-old and I highly recommend fostering to anyone who loves animals and has the space to care for them.
These animals may require a lot of patience because they have been in a shelter for a long time, are close to being euthanized or interact poorly but each deserves a chance at a real life. We can help make the world a better place, four paws at a time.
