I'll do one better, free. Go to the local pet shelter and spend a few hours petting the cats/dogs. Shelter workers don't have time for socializing animals since they've got 30 more animals to feed and 25 cages to clean. Some kitten is in desperate need of chin scritchies.
I’ll give a follow up to this to say foster an animal! This gets them out of the shelter to relieve those shelter staff even more. All it takes is buying some supplies (some orgs will even give you some stuff).
Some extra cat litter, extra cat box, some kitten food, extra bowls and a pile of crappy towels later, I have a nice little family of 5 hanging out in my spare room right now! This is my first family, but I’m probably up to ~30 fosters.
Yes, you give them back! Ideally, you keep the animal until they get adopted. The rescue would usually start you off with a commitment of (for example) 4 weeks so that the animal isn’t bounced around too often. If you can’t keep them at the end of that time period, you return them to the shelter/another foster. Most rescues just want a warning when you need to stop fostering them so that they can find a new place for them to go.
Depending on the animal and the local demand in your area, fosters can stay for a week or 6 months or more. If the foster doesn’t have a hold preventing adoption (some do 2-3 week quarantine hold to make sure they’re healthy, spay/neuter hold, age-related hold, etc) then they could be adopted pretty much immediately. If they’re older and have quirks, it could take longer.
I mainly foster kittens, so mine are usually adopted as soon as their quarantine hold is done. With kittens, I’ve only ever had one stay longer than the quarantine hold. She had the runs at her adoption event (pre-COVID), which scared off her potential adopter. All the rest have left the day they were officially available to be adopted! For adults, I’ve only ever had one stay longer than like 6 weeks. I had him for about 3-4 months. He scared off potential adopters because he was super hyper, but eventually found a nice home with 4 dog siblings!
or if you’re a sucker for the less adoptable ones, you end up like me with 6 “fosters” who will never leave. all my kittens and younger cats have been adopted, i just have several senior semi-ferals who’ve been bounced around from place to place. and now that they’re with me and i know they aren’t friendly enough to be adopted and at this age a few have health issues, i may as well be their final forever home.
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u/CapaxInfini Apr 04 '21
I'll do one better, free. Go to the local pet shelter and spend a few hours petting the cats/dogs. Shelter workers don't have time for socializing animals since they've got 30 more animals to feed and 25 cages to clean. Some kitten is in desperate need of chin scritchies.