Fostering Information

What are the criteria for foster homes?

Ideally a foster carer is someone who has been around dogs for some time and has some dog handling/training skills and a general knowledge of canine behaviour. Experience in handling Greyhounds or other sighthounds would be advantageous but not essential. A stable home environment with established routines is important.

A foster home needs to have a well fenced yard and/or a secure pen. The foster carer would preferably be someone who has some time that can be spent each day introducing the dog to new and novel experiences and increasing his general confidence.

The presence of children and/or other pets in the foster home would be seen as an advantage so long as careful supervision of any interactions can be assured. Many of these dogs will eventually be placed in adoptive homes with children, dogs, cats, birds or other pets. It is therefore important to assess each Greyhound's response and prey drive potential, so that good matches can be made between dog and adoptive family.

Many of our adopters work full time so there isn't someone home all the time, some live in an apartment, some don't have much of a backyard, some have young children, some don't have any other animals and some can only have the dog inside of an evening. Strangely enough, these are reasons that actually make these people more suitable to be a foster carer.