Start Your 4 Weeks for Life Foster Journey
Every 4th of July or the days ahead of the holiday, LA Animal Services Centers experience a spike of lost and frightened pets that make their way into our care due to fireworks. The influx of animals require space in our shelters, which puts existing shelter dogs and cats at higher risk for euthanasia.
This is where you come in. By fostering an available, adoptable dog or cat during our 4 Weeks for Life foster campaign, you create space for the incoming pets with nowhere else to go. With the increased levels of animals in our care, the ideal time to foster is four weeks, to ensure that kennel space is available for lost animals. Not only do you help that shelter dog or cat and our shelter, but you’re also helping the owners of those potentially lost dogs and cats with the time to reunite with their beloved family member.
Scroll below for more info and sign up to foster today.
If you have the time and can allocate some space in your home for puppies or kittens, here are the steps to follow:
- Visit our website to see our animals and identify one to three animals you may want to foster, and get their Animal ID number or A# (example:A1234567)
- Email the Lifesaving/Foster Liaison at ani.foster@lacity.org with your completed foster application (if you have not fostered before) with:
- the Animal ID number(s) of the pets you want to meet.
- Please select one and only one shelter location on your application. (You will still be able to foster from any location regardless of what you select)
- A scan or photo of your current photo ID. If your current address is not shown on the ID, please also include another form of address verification (picture of mail received, utility bill, etc.)
- We will call you once your application is reviewed to schedule an appointment.
Already an approved foster? Please contact your lifesaving or volunteer liaison.
Each year, kittens and puppies are born with no one to take care of them. Most humane organizations cannot take care of underage puppies and kittens because they do not have the personnel to provide the special attention for these little ones. They need people who are willing to raise the puppies and kittens until they are 8 to 10 weeks old when they can be returned to the shelter to be spayed or neutered and placed in permanent homes.
At LA Animal Services, our ability to take in these abandoned animals is directly dependent on the number of reliable foster volunteers we have waiting to take these babies home to raise. We believe foster homes are the future of lifesaving. The more foster volunteers we have, the more lives we can save.
Our foster volunteers are a rugged group of very caring people who do everything from bottle feeding orphaned babies around the clock, to socializing little ones to ensure that they look forward to human and animal interaction. The foster volunteers provide care, safety and love.
It will be a labor of love that will leave you with great memories to cherish long after your foster animals have been placed into permanent loving homes.
LA Animal Services will offer you as much training as you need. Help from our staff is just a phone call away. Each of our fosters parents are given training which may be quite short if you’re wanting to foster an adult dog who desperately needs to get out of the busy, noisy and many times frightening shelter environment, or longer if you need to be trained in Baby Bottle Feeding of kittens or puppies.
Not only does our foster program maximize the number of animals rescued and saved, it allows LA Animal Services to care for animals who would be difficult to care for in our shelter environment-orphaned or shy kittens or dogs needing one-on-one behavior rehabilitation. For animals who may need a break from the sometimes crazy shelter environment, foster care provides a comfortable home setting that keeps these foster companions happy and healthy. And now YOU have the opportunity to involve yourself in this lifesaving mission.
Foster parenting can be more flexible than other volunteer jobs that require people to show up for a specific shift during limited times of the day and for a committed length of time. LA Animal Services Foster program is flexible, fun and rewarding once you’re learned how to take care of your temporary companion animals! Here are more resources for first-time foster parents.
Essential Information for the care of kittens 8 weeks of age and under. Download our Kitten Bottle Baby Care Manual.
The successful rearing of motherless puppies requires a regular schedule of appropriate feedings, elimination, playing and sleeping, all in a safe and healthy environment. Learn to adequately care for puppies.
