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Not just a pet, a friend for life.
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Focus on Fostering
If you look at Shamrock's mission statement, it is about spaying/neutering and keeping dogs out of the dead-end shelters. The Shamrock adoption/foster program evolved as a result of a need (they say that necessity is the mother of invention). We needed to find places to keep dogs because we did not want them to go to a shelter.
At first I thought it would be great to have a shelter of our own. Now I think it would be filled 100% of the time and we would still need foster homes.
Having dogs in foster homes instead of shelters does several good things.
- The dogs learn to live in a home environment, often with other animals and children. They can then be placed in a home that is suitable for their personality and we have fewer returns.
- Dogs in foster homes have advocates who work to get them adopted. Each dog has a family who takes the dog places, talks about him, and trains him to have good manners. Most foster families are anxious to see him/her placed in a good home where the animal's needs and behaviors are matched with what the adopter finds desireable in a pet.
- There is no overhead to pay for a foster dog. With the limited funds we work so hard to raise, 95% of the money that we raise pays for the medical care (spay, neuter, shots, etc.)of our animals. We do not have to pay rent, utilities or maintenance on a building. Nor do we have to provide a staff. This would be impossible to do with the rising costs of maintaining an infrastructure and our limited budget. But there is a downside to not having a building. We have no central place for people to see the animals any time they want.
Our website is a tremendous resource and it helps us overcome the obstacle of not having our own shelter. We think of our website as our own virtual shelter. It helps potential adopters learn about our organization and see what animals we have available. It gives them access to our volunteers virtually 24 hours a day. Once we are contacted, via email, our volunteers can quickly begin working to get an animal and potential adopter together so they can meet each other in person.
Year over year the Shamrock Foundation helps hundreds of dogs find new homes and we do it one dog at a time.
For information on becoming a foster please send an email to adoptions@shamrockpets.com.
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