ALBERTA HERDING DOG RESCUE

OUR FOSTER PROGRAM

We are not a shelter or public facility, with regular business hours, where potential adopters can drop in at any time and go home with a dog of their choice.  All of our animals are fostered in private homes, or at Cavorting K9s Retreat, which allows us to better assess their temperament and behaviour, and understand the type of family that will best suit their needs.

We are a firm believer that it takes at least a month for the dog to learn the new home routine & get comfortable enough to be themselves, whether that is in a new foster home or with an adoption family.  We make every effort to match our dogs to an appropriate foster home that can work with their known issues to help them become better adoption candidates.  We cover the cost of vet care and food/treats (appointments & purchases must be authorized), as well as municipal licencing requirements but boarding, training sessions or classes are currently out of our price range.  Anything the foster home can help with covering costs is greatly appreciated as it means we can allocate funds to another dog in need.  This will also be applied towards adopting their foster dog, if they decide to adopt the dog themselves.

Please note that many of these herding breeds are transferred or surrendered to us because they exhibit:

• excessive herding/chasing/nipping behaviours that many pet owners do not know how to deal with
• no herding behaviours that the stockmen & ranchers are looking for or
• very high intensity & drive that require an appropriate outlet, such as dog sports
• fear reactivity to various triggers that will take time & patience & training to deal with.

We rarely get a "couch potato" that is happy to just sit in the yard and watch the world go by.  It is even rarer that we get puppies less than a year old or well-trained stock dogs.

It is more likely that we will get a dog that was found as a stray, was chasing livestock and in danger of being shot or would shut down when worked on livestock, was nipping the kids or smaller animals or chasing bicyclists/cars, is somewhat fearful of specific types of people, barked excessively or has resource guarding or separation or isolation anxiety issues or some other obsessive behaviour often left to manifest into a bigger problem that owners had difficulty dealing with. 

So before you fill out our fostering application, please be sure you are willing to work with the dog's known issues (those issues are listed on their website profiles) so we can help them find the perfect home.