Fostering Information

Why place Greyhounds in foster homes?

• 

Greyhounds which have been brought up on rearing farms and later housed in kennels during their racing careers have a very regimented lifestyle and have little or no experience of the day to day happenings in the average family household. The first two or three weeks of a Greyhound's transformation into a companion dog represents a huge learning curve and may be stressful to the dog unless handled sympathetically.

The fostering period allows for an assessment of the Greyhound's personality and behaviour traits which may not be apparent in a kennel environment. It allows the dog to be introduced carefully to a range of new experiences so that when faced with these in their future adoptive home, the dog can cope without apprehension or fear. This is also the time when speying or neutering can be arranged.

The idea behind fostering a dog prior to adoption is to help prepare that dog for the different experiences, lifestyles and situations he/she will encounter in their life as a pet. More times than not, this will be a home where people work full time and can only have the dog inside with them for a couple of hours in the evening. We are also getting an increasing number of people looking for dogs to live in villas, townhouses and terrace houses with very small backyards. Therefore, it is far more beneficial for the dog to get used to the sort of lifestyle that he/she will be placed into as a pet during their fostering stage. This also helps GAP to determine which dogs are best suited to the many different types of living environments that our dogs now live in. The wider the spectrum of foster homes available, the wider the spectrum of adoptive homes in which we can place our dogs.