Fostering Hope Animal Rescue Foundation

My family wanted to adopt a dog, so we looked at the descriptions to try to find one that would match our family. We decided on an older dog (2yrs). She was described as gentle, house trained, and "loves people of all ages". We discovered she was living with a family with children. She seemed like she would be a good fit, so we asked to meet her.

We met in a room with the family that had been fostering her so we could see how she acted around us and could ask lots of questions. She was very gentle and friendly in the meeting (our whole family was present). We decided to adopt her and paid the $450 adoption fee and took her home.

We soon saw some behaviors we didn't expect. My children (boys 13, and 10) were playing with her when we got home (catch and tug-o-war) and she suddenly started biting their calves and ankles. (Please note that we were with them the whole time. Our children were never left alone with her. And our extended family has a number of medium and large sized dogs, so they are used to dogs.) I'm sure this dog thought she was playing, but the kids were starting to become wary. This behavior continued. Later on, my 4 year old girl was bit on the calf when she was just sitting and petting her. After a few of these events my children became scared of her and were hiding from her in their rooms, scared of being bit. Most of this behaviour happened while we were outside and playing, but we had a few happen inside as well. My wife was also bit multiple times, which resulted in bruises on her calf. She was pretty good with me. I was never bit.

When we described this to Fostering Hope they contacted the foster family who said they hadn't seen this behaviour before. They suspected the dog was testing us. They offered us the number of a trainer we could hire to work with us. They also suggested we should keep her very active. We walked her 2-3 hours each day that we had her, and were playing with her multiple times a day in the backyard. (The children had become very wary so this fell on me and my wife). But it looked like our children were going to be living in fear until we could train this out of her.
So we made the hard decision that this dog was not a good fit for our family, and we would have to give her back. She was usually quite gentle in the house, but outside and playing was often a different story. We had her from 1pm on Saturday and gave her back on Tuesday morning. (Be aware that the adoption fee is not returned, so we were out $450 as well as the supplies we bought to care for her and make her feel welcome in our home).
She was reposted for adoption 2 days later. While the difficult behaviors we experienced didn't find their way into her new public profile, we would hope that a family with children would be warned about the behaviour we experienced.

Fostering Hope was very kind through the whole experience. And we think this was a bad fit for our family, though it does seem strange that this behaviour would come out of nowhere.

My advice would be to not only meet the dog inside the meeting room, but also play with the dog outside with your children at the adoption center. It would also be nice if there was a 24 hour period where you could see if the dog was going to fit with your family.

Very organized and quick getting back to applicants. The purpose being to get pets into good homes, they do an excellent job. We got to talk to the foster parent, learn about the personality and behavior of our chosen dog, before making a final decision. The establishment was clean, tidy, spacious, with a meeting room to visit our dog and foster parent. Medical records were quite to arrive after our adoption. This is amongst the best organizations for finding great matches quickly, for the sake of the pets.

What a wonderful organization. They do so much good. We just adopted a dog from them. They have a great application process that is not too intense like some places. They want to find the best home for each dog, but they are focused on getting their animals into forever homes expediently. We are thrilled with our new little guy. Small recommendations to make it an even better process: A sign on the shelter door as it is in an industrial section and was difficult to find and when you do, you’re not sure you are in the right place. Also, a richer description of each animal including what their energy level is like. Multiple pictures would be nice. The picture and description are all people have to go on to see if the animal is a right for for their family. Thank you Fostering Hope! You do just that!

We adopted our puppy Aspen from Fostering Hope and she is the perfect puppy for our family. The staff have been excellent with communication and follow up and it is very obvious their animals are well cared for and loved before they are adopted. The process and paperwork was easy and the costs were very reasonable.