Bostons in long-term foster care PART ONE

Dear Friends and readers, we have some exciting news to share with you.  First you need some background. We hope you will take a little time to read this short article first.

 PART ONE: BACKGROUND

Past experiences of volunteering as a group foster home helping with a 501(c)(3) nonprofit rescue organization lead us to want to help develop a strategy that would make a positive impact on the care of long-term fosters, first by identifying a problem and then to find a way we could as a network provide a solution.

We decided to focus on the area of dogs in long-term foster care.

These are dogs who are either not available for adoption and will be long-term fostered for their entire lifetime, or they are special needs, have chronic medical problems, or recovering from a trauma, and may take longer than normal to find a forever-home. In some cases the dogs may never be adoptable.

When newly rescued Boston Terriers first come into a rescue, they are placed in foster homes and receive complete medical care. They are then  placed on the available lists for adoption. They usually do not have to wait long to find their forever home.

Why is a dog in long-term foster care?

But there are many rescued dogs that are not so lucky. They are placed into long-term foster care, and not put up for adoption. This can be due to age, medical issues, abuse or behavioral problems. Many are in this category on a permanent basis.

How does this affect the rescue organization?

The more dogs that get adopted and the faster safe loving homes are found, the more dogs can be rescued from horrible fates. We all understand that while in foster care, certain basic needs must be met by the rescue organization. And these organizations do this day in day out year after year…. And this takes many volunteers and a lot of money.

What is not generally recognized is long-term fosters are usually very expensive. They fill up slots in loving homes. Rescues have limited funding resources and foster homes. This makes for a very stressful situation. Not enough foster homes and not enough money…

What would you do in this case?

Example: Your organization can only safely foster 20 dogs. Yet there are 30 dogs that need your care? Not counting the numerous calls requesting you take in dogs from other overflowing rescues.

What do you do? Provide basic needed medical care to get a wonderful dog adopted and help it find its new home  and not to bring in owner surrendered or dogs in kill shelters because there is not enough space for new dogs?
Your rescue just cannot take in another dog that needs extensive medical care until you find the money to ensure that everything possible is done for the dog.

How do you decide ?

Do you use your limited funds to help five new dogs basic required vaccinations and medical needs like deworming so that they are ready to adopt, so that they are ready to adopt?  OR do you help one dog who needs an eye operation that will save the eye but may never find a forever home…. Talk about stressful… These are the kind of decisions that someone has to make at every rescue day in and day out..

Yes there are friends that donate money; yes the vets give you huge discounts. Unfortunately, that is not enough and the rescues usually end up borrowing money or their supporters keep digging into their own pockets to scrap up just a little more and squeeze in one more dog . You know that this cannot keep on occurring. Volunteers burn out and quit, overwhelmed and heartbroken.

And then there is the awful guilt and stress when a rescue just has to say NO MORE DOGS! because the vets can’t give any more discounts, the rescue owes the vets much already, and the volunteers are having problems with too many dogs in their homes…

These are the actualities that every rescue has to deal with; too many dogs, not enough funds and not enough fosters…. And a public that doesn’t understand what is happening to our beloved rescue volunteers.

So BOSTON TERRIER NETWORK wants to help and we have an idea we want to tell you about in our next article.... We hope you will be as excited as we are.....