One of the most challenging segments of our population are dogs who are large, unable to live with children, and unable to live with other pets. Adopters have a difficult time taking in dogs who don’t like other animals, and have a difficult time reconciling with the fact that not everybody gets along all the time! Unfortunately, this leads to very long lengths of stay for this population of dogs, and we do our very best to place them in foster care while they wait for their forever home. We call the special and wonderful foster families who take these dogs in Unicorn Fosters, because they kindly open their hearts and homes to these dogs who are lovely and special, but difficult to place.
Placing these dogs in foster homes gives adopters an idea of what they’ll look like in a forever home! For example, they’ll see a dog who doesn’t love other dogs snoozing on a couch in a sunbeam and think ”wow, I could have that in my house!”. Fostering these dogs breaks the stigma that not every dog needs to get along with everyone and everything! It normalizes the idea that dogs do “dog things” such as guarding food and toys, or being afraid of strangers, or disliking other animals invading their space. This program celebrates the wonderful and lovable aspects of these dogs, and highlights them, instead of focusing on the negative!
Our Unicorn Foster parents are each sent home with a goody bag of fun things both for themselves, and for their foster dog, as a small “thank you” for taking a chance on the most overlooked dogs in the shelter. As with all of our foster parents, they have the support of the foster team throughout their entire fostering experience, by way of supplies, training advice, general advice, and anything else needed!
