Foster programs provide temporary home environments for animals awaiting adoption, improving welfare through reduced shelter stress and better assessment of behavior.
Foster programs represent one of the highest-impact interventions available to animal shelters for improving individual animal welfare. The transition from shelter environment to home reduces stress, allows expression of natural behaviors impossible in shelters, and provides behavioral information essential for successful adoption matching. For socially sensitive species like cats and for animals with behavioral challenges, foster placement can be the difference between successful adoption and euthanasia. The welfare benefit per foster placement is large relative to the modest cost to the shelter.