A Foster Parent's Responsibilities: Do What You Committed Yourself to Do

In the last blog post we talked about a foster parent's responsibilities toward their foster dog. But in this post I want to talk about their responsibilities toward the group they foster for.

You signed up to foster dogs because you love dogs and you want to help dogs. Right? Well, like anything in life it isn't all sugar and sunshine and believe it or not, it isn't all dogs either.

Fostering involves paperwork: writing pet bios for Websites, taking photos of your dog and getting those uploaded into online photo albums, communicating with potential adopters and writing your dog's long bio so they have a better feel for your foster dog, making sure your dog has had their required vetting done and getting copies of the vetting paperwork sent into the correct person in your organization who might track that. After the vetting you need to go online and fill out a form if you want to be reimbursed for the vetting expenses and you need to do all of this in a timely manner. It sounds like a lot but once you get a routine, going and know the process, it hardly takes any time at all - just a few minutes here and there. But it does have to get done.

When you sign up to foster you sign up for all of this. In the group I work with expectations are clear when you are trained, including time lines as to when these things should be completed and you sign a contract stating that you've read what your responsibilities as a volunteer are and you agree to take on those responsibilities.

We are all adults here. Do the job you signed up to do. DON'T make some poor volunteer have to come after you with reminder after reminder that you are late getting your dog listed on the Web for adoption or to please send in the vetting documents. That is not their job. So don't be the lame-ass that over and over again has to be reminded to follow through with their responsibilities. Strong words? You bet they are and I mean every one.

Because it is rude to make a person have to take time out of their schedule to ask you to please do what you committed yourself to do. You got busy? I would bet that the person who had to take the time to email you a reminder is equally or more busy - they probably have a foster dog of their own, a job and a family and then possibly a stack of other volunteer responsibilities. So be the adult. Meet your deadlines. Do what you said you would do and don't make someone else have to come nag you.

If you truly have no time to do this less fun side of fostering then you need to rethink fostering or think about fostering fewer dogs. Because really, there's not a lot to the paperwork side of things. It goes fast once you sit down and make yourself do it. And this stuff is not just busy work - it's an important side to making sure that the health needs of your dog are being met and they are getting the publicity they need to find a home that is a good fit for them.