Animal fostering can save a pet's life

The Daily Review
Tuesday, April 08, 2003 8:15:57 AM PST
Animal fostering can save a pet's life
Programs help save dogs, cats from euthanasia until suitable owners can be found
By Brooke Bryant, Staff Writer

SAN RAMON -- Aki Sigle has two foster charges in her suburban home, a rangy teenager with boundless enthusiasm and a more finite supply of self-discipline, and an older mixed-breed bearing scars from his last home.

Sigle says she has fostered more than 300 in the last few years -- not kids, but dogs. She is a volunteer with Tri-Valley Animal Rescue, which rescues the animals from local shelters and cares for them until suitable homes can be found.

Already this year, volunteers have brokered adoptions for more than 200 animals. Sigle became involved while looking for her first dog.

"I realized that I could adopt a dog and I would be able to save the life of one, but if I fostered a dog, I could save multiple dogs," she said.

Bruno and Cody are the latest dogs to cycle through her home, which also houses two permanent members, a golden retriever and a Rottweiler.

Six-year-old Bruno is an enormous blend of yellow labrador and Great Dane with a scar that cuts across his muzzle and a sweet habit of laying his head in the closest available lap. Cody is a mere 10 months old, a bona fide mutt, and his rambunctious energy is barely contained by the kiddie gate that blocks off the dogs' room from the rest of the house.

He jumps up quickly to investigate newcomers and then snaps back to sober attention at a gentle reminder from Sigle, but it only takes a few seconds for his tail to start bouncing frantically again.

Fostering programs have sprouted up all over the East Bay, one way to address the overcrowded shelters that are forced to put millions of abandoned pets on the euthanasia table each year in the United States.

Sigle's group gets its dogs from local shelters in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Sigle runs down a list of shelter dogs that are scheduled to be put down within the next 24 hours, crossing off older dogs and purebreds, which are usually taken by specialized rescue organizations.

Then she sorts through what is left to decide what the group can accommodate. Often she has to make decisions based on what is most likely to be adopted.

Puppies, of course, go the fastest.

Big dogs and black dogs, brindle dogs and old dogs -- these are all the last to go, Sigle said. Big dogs may seem like more work, black dogs more menacing, brindle dogs remind people of pit bulls, and older dogs just do not have the endearing appeal of a bouncing baby.

Once rescued from the shelter, the dogs are placed with foster parents, who care for the animal and are responsible for showing the dog at adoption events.

"It's kind of like rent-a-dog," Sigle mused.

In fact, many volunteers end up adopting their first foster, like Sigle did.

Fostering is not a solution to the overpopulation problem, it just helps alleviate some of the side effects. Animal groups continue to emphasize the need to spay and neuter pets.

A relatively easy step that probably would reduce the number of animals who find themselves in shelter cages, Sigle said, is taking the time to train a dog properly.

Owners often get fed up with puppy antics -- chewing with equal fervor on rubber toys and the wooden legs of the kitchen table, forgetting that outdoors is the best place for a bathroom break -- and discard their pet without trying to fix the unwanted behavior.

But foster homes are playing a growing role for shelters. Some groups, such as Contra Costa's Animal Rescue Foundation founded by baseball manager Tony LaRussa, depend completely on the kindness of fosters.

The fostering program East Bay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is a little different.

The society fosters out underage kittens and puppies, sick animals or those who just "need some time to calm down," said Operations Director Rachel Long.

In 2002, the group fostered more than 1,000 animals.

That means there is that much more space in the shelters for other animals, especially come spring, Long said.

That is when shelters across the country are inundated with abandoned newborns that cannot be adopted out immediately. Foster families take the infants into their homes and feed them every few hours.

Foster volunteers for the SPCA program must have both the time and the quiet, isolated space to devote to their charges.

Even then, the task is rife with difficulties.

Sometimes, the animals, too young or too sick, do not make it. Sometimes the reprieve is only temporary: Nobody wants to adopt them, and they have to be put down anyway.

Even a happy ending means a saying good-bye to the pet.

But, Sigle said, the animals are not the only ones who reap the benefits of the fostering arrangement. Fostering is one way to make a difference that is readily tangible, easy to see in the eyes of the animals who were otherwise going to end up a euthanasia statistic, she said.

It's almost like playing God, but a little bit safer, Sigle said.

The Tri-Valley Animal Rescue can be reached by e-mail: contact@tvar.org or www.tvar.org To reach the East Bay SPCA call (510) 563-4626; Contra Costa Humane Society, call (925) 279-2247; Animal Rescue Foundation call (925) 256-1273.

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