Fostering in Western Pennsylvania

The website of the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society outlines why it so needs fosters:

Kittens and Puppies

Beginning in the spring, we take in many nursing mom cats and kittens, nursing mom dogs and puppies, and orphaned litters. Your love and attention will allow these babies to reach the weight they need to be spayed/neutered and adopted.

Fosters feed, comfort and socialize these little creatures. The Humane Society provides all the needed medical support, including medications.

Sick Animals

The Western PA Humane Society has isolation and treatment rooms where we treat cats and kittens with upper respiratory infections and dogs and puppies with kennel cough... Isolation space is often a challenge in our shelter when many animals get sick at the same time. Housing them with healthy animals would compromise the health of our entire shelter population. At these times foster homes are crucial to the lives of our beloved animals.

If you don't currently have a pet in your house who would be exposed to these very common & easily curable shelter illnesses (or if you can bring a different species in, say a cat if your household has a dog), you can save a life just by providing love & care for an average of 10-14 days.

Neonatal Kittens and Puppies

When kittens and puppies too young to eat on their own come into our shelter, their lives depend upon staff and volunteers who have the time, energy, expertise and emotional strength to bottle-feed these babies.

If you have time for the special care these wee ones need, the Humane Society can train you to help them.

Space

The Western PA Humane Society doesn't usually foster out healthy, adoptable dogs and cats, prefering to have them on site where visiting potential adopters can interact with them. But as an Open Door Shelter they never turn away an animal in need. As you can imagine, that leaves them pretty busy (they currently take in more than 13,000 animals a year) and space is at a premium. That's where fostering comes in.

Readers in western Pennsylvania--hope you'll consider fostering for the WPA.
Those who already do: I'd love to post about your experience, so email me!