New foster care program launches in New York City

Calling all tri-state animal lovers!

We’re beyond excited to announce the launch of a new program that has the potential to save the lives of thousands of shelter pets — and help push New York City further toward the 90 percent save rate threshold to be recognized as a no-kill city.

Working alongside Animal Care and Control (AC&C) of NYC, Best Friends is currently accepting applications for anyone interested in taking a pet from a shelter into their home for long- or short-term foster care.

What does it mean to open your home and foster a shelter pet? A foster home is a safe place for a shelter animal to live until he or she finds a forever home. The pet may be fostered for a short amount of time (for instance, until space opens up in a rescue group) or for a longer period, until the animal is adopted directly into a permanent loving home. Either way, the time commitment is set before you take the animal into your home. Fostering is an incredibly rewarding experience for you, because you’re helping to save a life. But it’s also a big deal for the fostered animals because they are able to live in a home environment and learn valuable skills that will help them become more adoptable.

This Best Friends program has been developed alongside AC&C as an assessed need — something that can have a big impact on the lives of animals in New York City. There has been a lot of progress in the New York area in terms of saving animals’ lives, but there’s much more work to do, and we believe that a foster program will help free up needed space in the five-borough shelter system, which accepts around 30,000 animals per year.

The foster program’s size and success is only limited by how many people sign up. Don’t think you’re cut out to foster? Read this article posted on Petfinder.com to learn eight reasons why you can indeed foster a pet, even if you think you can’t.

If you’re interested in fostering a pet in the New York City area, click here to learn more.