Foster an Animal
Helping PAWS Pet Rescue welcomes foster families! Sharing your home with an animal, even temporarily, is a wonderful opportunity for the rescue animal as well as you!
Page Quick Links: Minimum Requirements Foster Process Ways to Foster
Foster
Minimum Requirements
Fostering helps prepare animals for adoption by giving them a chance to live in a caring home where they can express their personalities, overcome fears, or recover from illness or trauma while they await adoption. It also helps provide more space at our rescue facility.
Once you take in a foster animal, you are responsible for providing the animal with day-to-day care, safety, and shelter. Helping PAWS provides all vaccinations and covers approved veterinary care. Should someone be interested in adopting the animal, you agree to make him or her available to meet the potential adopter. We do ask that an animal is fostered for a minimum of two weeks.
Foster
The Process
Please take a moment to read about the fostering process, and carefully fill out the application which you can find on this website. If you fall in love with the animal you foster, you may have the option to adopt him or her!
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1. Learn About Our Available Animals
We invite you to learn more about our available animals by viewing them on this website! All of our animals are examined and care for by a licensed veterinarian.
If you meet our requirements and are serious about fostering, we invite you to schedule time to come visit our available animals in-person. We ask that you remember that a rescue environment can be stressful for some animals, and some of them may exhibit shyness and nervousness.
While we can’t facilitate cat-to-cat meetings or cat-to-dog meetings at our facility, we offer a compatibility trial period if needed. Dog Fostering Note: If you have a dog in your home already, a dog-to-dog meet and greet is required prior to fostering.
2. The Fostering Application Process
We require potential foster families to complete and submit an adoption & foster application. Please carefully fill out the adoption & foster application which can be found on this website. Applications are reviewed anonymously by our Application Committee.
Every effort is made to obtain a determination as quickly as possible, and many applications are processed in as little as 24 hours. Delays, when they do occur, are most often the result of missing or incomplete veterinary information. A volunteer will contact you as soon as your application has been reviewed to notify you whether the application has been accepted or to request further information.
If selected, you will speak with a Helping PAWS Pet Rescue volunteer to get the details on all you need to know about fostering. Once you take in a foster animal, you are responsible for providing the animal with day-to-day care, safety, and shelter. Helping PAWS provides all vaccinations and covers approved veterinary care. Should someone be interested in adopting the animal, you agree to make him or her available to meet the potential adopter. We do ask that an animal is fostered for a minimum of two weeks.
Submit the Application: Complete the application online by clicking the Online Application Form button below.
Please Note: Helping Paws is a volunteer-run rescue so it may take a few days for us to respond to your inquiry or review your application.
Foster
Ways to Foster
In addition to people fostering an animal in their home, we have several other creative foster options:
- Blue Collar Cats – live at local businesses and greet shoppers.
- Mouse Master Cats or Mouse-cat-eers – live with families that have safe, enclosed outbuildings where they can demonstrate their mouse hunting skills.
- Study Buddies – live with local college students who can give them love and attention. If you live in a dorm, we will need proof of permission from residence life staff.
- Career Coach Cats – live in local classrooms, helping students learn animal care and handling techniques, and are often adopted by a student’s family.
- Purr-amedics – live temporarily in our area’s people-care facilities where they serve as therapy animals.
- Litterbug Cats – live with local families while they raise their kittens. The kittens are often fostered for a longer period of time with these families to help socialize them.
- TemPurrary Cats – are temporarily fostered when their owner is unable to care for them due to challenging circumstances.
- EMT Ruff-ugees – live with local families while they recover from medical needs or recent surgery. Foster families help make these animals well while they await adoption.
Helping PAWS is a 501(c)(3) organization. We are primarily a volunteer-run organization. If you are interested in joining our volunteer team, please contact us.
126 West Bayfield Street, Suite 3
PO Box 294
Washburn, WI 54891
Alternative Contact: 715-513-6106
Hours
By Appointment Only
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