Join the PRC Foster Squad!
Being a Foster Volunteer is extremely rewarding, educational, and fun. You will have a significant, positive impact on the lives of homeless pets. Caring for orphaned kittens, nursing sick or injured pets back to health, providing some much needed socialization, and helping find potential adopters for your foster pets are just some of the ways you can impact the lives of homeless pets at PRC!
Our foster volunteers do so much for the animals at PRC! As a result of their time in foster, dogs and cats are less stressed in the shelter, are more socialized with people, and have better chances at finding their fur-ever homes.
Most importantly, thanks to fosters like YOU, many dogs' and cats' lives are saved!
We look forward to working with you!
What's Next?
Questions? E-mail fosterpets@HCFL.gov.
Unable to foster at this time but still want to help? Consider joining our onsite volunteer program! Email PRCVolunteer@HCFL.Gov for more information.
Adventure Tails Fosters work directly with the foster team to help enrich the lives of our shelter dogs. Fosters will take a shelter dog for a day out to provide a break from shelter life and to document observations on how they interact in new environments.
Pet Resource Center provides each Adventure Tail foster volunteer with an Adventure Tails goody bag that includes poop bags, a water bowl, a toy, a bag of treats and an "Adopt Me" bandanna. Adventure Tails can be scheduled 7 days a week, excluding holidays. Pickup appointments are scheduled in the morning 9:30am-10am, later pick up appointments available on a case-by-case basis. Return appointments are scheduled between 2pm-5:30pm.
Our behavior foster volunteers will work alongside our foster team and wellness team to provide behavior support to animals in need. In most cases, the time commitment is longer, averaging 4-6 weeks. Behavior fosters provide critical support to pets that often have a harder time getting adopted due to their behavior concerns. Often just having a calm environment and a more consistent routine helps our pets to overcome these issues and become wonderful adoption candidates.
The most common behavior concerns are:
Our wellness team can provide our behavior fosters with ongoing support via phone, email, and one-on-one appointments when needed. Basic animal handling skills will be required. Some behavior dogs will require a more experienced dog handler or someone familiar with a particular breed/behavior issue.
During kitten season, roughly March-December, we become overrun with orphaned kittens in need of foster care. The most vulnerable of these kittens, are neonatal kittens ages 4 weeks and under. Bottle babies require special care and attention and are a longer time commitment, usually 8 weeks. Kittens this young need to be fed every 2-4 hours, stimulated to urinate/defecate, and need to be kept warm, all the things momma cats usually do.
Kittens return to the shelter for weight checks and booster vaccines every 2 weeks until they reach 1.5-2 pounds and are then able to be scheduled for their spay/neuter surgeries and put up for adoption.
Bottle Baby fosters require training with the foster team prior to taking home their kittens to ensure they are set up for success.
Foster adoption ambassadors are foster volunteers who help to highlight our long stay pets for adoption, as well as provide them with a break from the shelter environment. These can be short or long term fosters, depending on the foster volunteers availability as well as the needs of the individual pets. On average, the time commitment is 1-2 weeks.
The main job of our foster adoption ambassadors is to actively highlight their foster pets for adoption by sharing them on social media, talking about them to friends, family, and neighborhood, and taking them out into the community to be seen. The more exposure the better!
Medical foster volunteers provide a loving, calm environment for pets recovering from injuries, illnesses, or surgeries. In most cases, medical fosters are longer time commitments, averaging 2-4 weeks but can be longer depending on the pets condition.
The most common illnesses/conditions sent to medical foster are:
Medical foster volunteers are expected to bring their foster pet in for all follow-up appointments and rechecks, typically every 1-2 weeks or more as needed.
Medical experience is not required prior to committing to a medical foster, as the Pet Resource Center foster team will provide any and all training and care instructions along with any needed medications at time of pick up.
During kitten season, roughly March-December, we become overrun with nursing cats and their kittens. Our kitten foster volunteers provide the care, socialization, and love needed to raise healthy adoptable kittens. The time commitment for kittens ranges 2-8 weeks, depending on their age when they arrive at PRC.
Nursing moms do all the hard work of feeding and cleaning their babies. Your job is to provide a safe and clean space for them to wean them. Kittens return to the shelter for weight checks and booster vaccines every 2 weeks until they reach 1.5-2 pounds and are then able to be scheduled for their spay/neuter surgeries and put up for adoption.
During kitten season, roughly March-December, we become overrun with orphaned kittens in need of foster care. Our kitten foster volunteers provide the care, socialization, and love needed to raise healthy adoptable kittens. The time commitment for kittens ranges 2-8 weeks, depending on their age when they arrive at PRC.
Kittens return to the shelter for weight checks and booster vaccines every 2 weeks until they reach 1.5-2 pounds and are then able to be scheduled for their spay/neuter surgeries and put up for adoption.
Foster volunteers are great advocates for the foster program as well as the Pet Resource Center as a whole! Event foster volunteers attend events as a spokesperson for the program. Your job at events will be to man the foster information booth and talk with prospective foster volunteers about your experiences as a foster, hand out information packets on the program, and have people sign up. Stories are powerful and word of mouth is our biggest recruiting tool!
Often we have citizens reach out to use who are going through hard times and are temporarily unable to care for their beloved pets. Rather than having those citizens surrender their pets, our Pet Support Team is able to connect that citizen with resources to get back on their feet, while our foster volunteers provide a safe place for their pets until they are able to reclaim them.
Retention fosters are long term commitments, averaging 30-90 days. These pets are not available for adoption unless the owner is unable to reclaim their pet at the end of the agreed upon time. In some cases, the owner’s situation may be confidential, foster volunteers are expected to use discretion.
Studies show that even just a night away from the shelter can be beneficial for shelter dogs! Since most dogs in our shelter come in as strays, we often don’t know anything about them. Sleepover, and weekend foster volunteers provide 1-3 days of foster care to allow us to learn more about our dogs personalities so we can help them find their forever homes!
Due to the short-term nature of these fosters, we typically recommend keeping them fully separate from household pets.
When it comes to gifts for pets, there are always lots of options. But what if you had the chance to give shelter pets the very best gift at the very best time: A home for the holidays, even if only for a few days?
The Hillsborough County Pet Resource Center has created the Silent Night foster program, which puts pets into foster homes for a short period of time over the holidays. Residents willing to foster a dog or cat will pick up the pet and pet food from the shelter sometime between Dec. 20 and Dec. 23.
They will provide a home and love, then return the dog or cat between Dec. 27 and Dec. 30, meaning the foster parent will only have the pet for four to 12 days.
Information and photos of the dogs and cats at the shelter can be seen online. Any pet listed as “Ready to Go” are eligible for this program.
To work collaboratively with volunteers and all shelter departments to provide the best welfare for our pets while in our care, increase adoptions by highlighting the amazing qualities of our pets, provide much needed respite for animals experiencing shelter stress, and expand the communities knowledge on animal welfare through outreach efforts and ensure the safety and health of people and pets in Hillsborough County.
