Wanted: Fluffy foster carers for homeless dogs

Thursday 02 November 2017

If you’ve ever wanted your own pup, but been worried about taking the plunge, then this could be the paw-fect opportunity for you.

JSPCA are offering islanders the chance to become fluffy foster carers to their dogs following the sad story of friendly Doberman Ariel.

The playful pooch has spent 10 months now in JSPCA’s care, and is still looking for a family to love her. Her experience, however, sparked an idea.

“We have tried to promote her as much as possible but unfortunately she’d been overlooked so many times so we thought, ‘what’s the next best thing we can do? Can we get her into a foster home until someone comes forward?’ She’s now going out to a foster home on Friday which we’re so pleased about. Because we’ve tried this with Ariel, we wanted to launch the scheme and see if we can help any others that come into our care and really just give them a bit of normality away from the kennel environment,” JSPCA’s Babs Keywood explained.

Pictured: Ariel has spent 10 months' in the JSPCA's care, but has fortunately found a temporary foster carer.

The charity launched their ‘Dog Guardian Scheme' as a result yesterday. It’s looking for people to take in a dog while the team searches for its forever home.

While they’re ideally looking for full-time carers, keen dogsitters can also apply for part-time placements during the daytime, overnight or at weekends.

All expenses including food, beds, harnesses and vet visits will be paid for by the JSPCA. Special training will also be provided to canine carers to ensure that they help the homeless pups maintain the good habits they’ve learned during their stay at the kennels.

Most importantly, however, the scheme will apparently help the pups’ wellbeing, as JSPCA’s Babs Keywood explained: “Trying to give your attention and TLC to all of the dogs in our care is a lot harder than a family concentrating on one dog so it’s lovely to think they can go into a home environment and have lots of cuddles and go out for lovely walks instead of being out for a period and having to go back to a noisy environment with other dogs barking.

Pictured: Ariel having a play.

“I remember a Jack Russel within the last six to eight months who lost his voice because he hated kennels so much he just cried the place down. He didn’t sleep, every time he went out all he would want to do on his walk is cuddle up and go to sleep. It would be nice to know once we’ve got this scheme in place we can get dogs into a home that can have love and care until a forever home becomes available for them,” she added.

Islanders can apply by attending the JSPCA and filling in a form. There, staff members will be on hand to answer any questions about the scheme.

A home visit will then take place to ensure that it’s a safe environment for the dogs.

“What I look for is that it is a safe area - there’s no hazards like toys on the floor or lots of things that dogs are going to eat. We also make sure they’re not going to be able to escape or jump over a wall or something - we always ensure that the walls are a certain height and that the garden is a nice enclosed area for them.” 

Pictured: Ariel enjoys escaping the kennels. The Guardian scheme will allow other dogs to do so too, which should help their wellbeing.

Since launching on Facebook yesterday, the scheme has already received considerable interest and been viewed by thousands of people online. They hope the interest will help them build up a bank of island helpers they can rely on to deliver homely canine care.

If successful, Ms Keywood says it may even branch into the feline world.

“We’re definitely not going to rule it out,” she said. “We do get some cats that could use that extra TLC again they hate the kennel environment. I think it would work for cats in the future. We just want to see that the dog guardian scheme is a success and then roll it out to animals.”