Join our team of fabulous dog fosterers!

Do you love dogs? Do you have lots of free time? Would you like to make a difference? If the answer to these questions is “ABSOLUTELY YES,” then we need your help!

Although we are lucky to have excellent kennel facilities to look after our rescue dogs whilst we are finding their furever homes, some of them find the loud and busy environment too stressful, and need more one-on-one, dedicated love and care.

To help care for our dogs who don’t cope well with kennel life, we are looking to recruit a small (but big hearted!) team of fabulous fosterers. Fostering is incredibly rewarding, and plays a huge part in helping abandoned and unwanted pets to prepare for their happy ever afters.

Fostering is usually short term (from as little as just a night or two to a few weeks) but long term care (for several months) with specialist fosterers is sometimes also required. We never know who will be arriving on our doorstep from one day to the next, so our foster team needs to be ready and waiting for our new arrivals, and whatever emotional baggage they may be bringing with them.

If you would like to apply to join our team of volunteers, you will need to fit the following criteria, for the safety, comfort and wellbeing of our animals.

• An abundance of empathy, compassion and patience.

• Previous experience of fostering or caring for dogs. If you have specific breed experience, that’s great, but you would ideally need to be able to foster all types and sizes of dogs.

• Be able to care for your foster friends’ needs, including feeding, walking, grooming and socialising.

• Live within 20 miles of our kennels in Buntingford, and able to drive to us when required (for pickups but also to attend visits with potential new owners), often at short notice.

• Plenty of free time. A lot of dogs who need foster care suffer from separation anxiety and become very stressed when left alone, so we won’t be able to consider your application if you work away from home during the day or have any other commitments which require you to be away for more than a couple of hours at a time.

• For safety reasons, no children or other pets living in your home.

• Own secure garden (fences must be at least 6ft high with no gaps for little escapees to squeeze through).

• Enthusiasm for training. In some cases, fosterers will be required to follow training programs to help to resolve any behavioural issues.

• Happy to help the rehoming process by providing photos, videos and regular updates.
  

We will provide you with everything that your furry fosters will need whilst they are staying with you including food, bed, harness, lead and medication.

If you would like to join our team of fabulous fosterers and make a real difference to a dog’s life, please e-mail info.rats@gmail.com. We will send you an application form and if successful, we will arrange a chat on the phone with our friendly Kennel Manager Julie, so that we can get to know you a little better. We will also need to visit your home (when Covid-19 restrictions allow) to make sure that it’s safe and secure.