Puppy Fostering Responsibilities for Volunteers

The following was written to help newer fosters understand what is expected of them. We hope to provide the necessary details regarding puppy fostering. If there are any more or comments or suggestions we would love to hear from you. We are always open to doing things better and keeping everything as simple as possible. Please feel free to call anytime, especially if the health of a pup is in question.

Regards,
Cheryl McCloud

• Pups are usually transported to Pet smart for pick up by fostering volunteers.

• All food, medicals, and crates and pens as necessary for fostering will be provided by Lake Haven.

• Puppies must be fed, watered, and sheltered appropriately.

• Puppies under 9 weeks should be fed 3 small meals daily. Over 9 weeks they usually can get by with 2 X a day.

• The foster must watch stools very closely as puppies can dehydrate very quickly with loose stools.

• Notify Cheryl immediately with any problems or suspected problems during the fostering process. Phone is 231-652-7507 or cell 616-745-3882.

• If you are fostering puppies they must be brought to the Grandville Pet Smart on the Saturdays by 11:45 AM. We are usually there the first 3 Saturdays of each month but sometimes holidays throw us off. We will notify you if that changes. It would be nice if you can stay with your pups at PetSmart so you can give 1st hand knowledge of the pups to perspective families and get a feel for where this pup my go. There is nothing better than taking a pup out of a kill shelter and then through your efforts finding it a home, it is quite a satisfaction. If you cannot stay then notify Cheryl that you will not be staying and make arrangements to pick pups up at end of showing.

• We send the pups paperwork with them where they travel, PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU BRING IT WITH YOU TO Pet Smart on Saturday along with the pups.

• If you can no longer foster in a given time frame, please notify Cheryl as soon as possible so that another foster may be found.

• If you won’t be fostering for a period of time please return crates and pens and food so that we may send it to another foster.

• We hope you will find your foster experience satisfying.

Lake Haven is run by the kindness, hard work and dedication of its nearly 100 volunteers.  Volunteering is a great way to earn class credit, add a skill to your resume, build character and give back to the community.  We are always looking for the right volunteers to perform a variety of tasks.  If you are interested in any of our volunteer opportunities, please fill out our volunteer form at www.lakehavenrescue.org/volunteer.