Fostering

Here you you find FAQ’s along with plenty of help and advice, including a wealth of resources, dog and cat foster care guides, sanitation tips for foster homes, short-term foster program ideas and more!

What is a foster parent?

Foster families save lives by helping to free up space in local shelters, socializing animals, assisting with preventing disease transmission in the shelter and within foster pets—and even by helping to place animals.

Foster parents can already be fur-baby parents or be on their own. We have a large network of all sorts of foster parents and always take living/working/experience into consideration before placement.

What is the process to become a foster parent?

You can join our foster network by applying here! Once we receive your responses, we’ll shoot you an email to set up a time do a home-visit to ensure that your home is a safe environment for the animal to live. Once approved, we send you the foster contract and get you on the list! We sometimes place an animal with you immediately, while other times we wait until the perfect opportunity comes along that meets your living requirements/specifications.

What is required of me financially?

We ask that foster families provide animal-specific food and litter (for cats), as well as any enrichment toys you think they need! Gatalunya pays for all medical expenses, including vaccinations, tests, bloodwork, anti-parasite treatments, and spay/neuters.

What is required of my Time?

Each animal requires a different amount of attention each day, but in general we look for foster parents that work from home or are allowed to take their dog to work. This is to help socialize the animals and help correct any bad behavior. Many of these animals came from very stressful environments and are just now learning to live as a normal house-pet. They need patience and attention in order to become adoptable.

What other Responsibilities does a foster parent have?

We ask foster parents to take their pet to and from the vet to encourage and maintain a detailed history of their health and happiness. The foster parents know their animal the best, so not only is it important for the foster parent to relay any un-known information to the vet, but also very important to the pet to feel relaxed while on the exam table!

We also ask foster parents to have availability for when their pet becomes adoption-ready and we need to introduce potential adopters.

We have a foster network Facebook group that provides support for foster parents. They have a wealth of information, ideas, solutions, and sometimes just want to grab a beer :) Please join if you are fostering with us!

What if I decide to keep my foster pet?

We understand that sometimes friends become family and it becomes difficult to part with your lovie. In this case, we offer a special foster-parent adoption with discounted rates to cover the money you have invested during their time in foster. And then we celebrate your new family member!

Got more questions?