Webinar Series: Foster Care

Foster care reduces an animal’s time in the shelter – which reduces that animal’s stress and the potential for exposure to disease. When foster animals leave the shelter, there’s more space and capacity to care for other animals in the shelter.

Sandra Newbury, DVM, National Shelter Medicine Extension Veterinarian at the Koret Shelter Medicine Program, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, presented four webinars on topics to start or help increase the capacity of your foster program.

Recorded Webinars

Early Age Care for Foster Animals 

You want to move animals into foster homes as quickly as possible to free up space for other animals, but what do you do with the babies? In the third webinar in the 3-part foster care series, Dr. Sandra Newbury will discuss early age care for puppies and kittens, from neonates to 8-weeks old. Anyone caring for young animals will benefit for this review of foster care topics including:

• Stages of growth and development
• Socialization
• Age estimation
• Gender checking
• What to monitor and when?
• Vaccination schedule
• Preventive treatment schedule
• Feeding, including bottle feeding

Packing their Bags: Getting Shelter Animals Ready for Foster Care

Foster care decreases an animal’s time in the shelter, reducing stress and the potential for exposure to disease. The second webinar in the 3-part foster care series will specifically address recommendations for preventive treatments, as well as medical / behavioral assessment and screening before and after placement. This free, 60-minute webinar is especially for shelters, rescue groups, and foster parents.

Dr. Newbury will review foster care medical and behavioral topics including:

• Proactively selecting animals for foster care
• Assessing health and behavior prior to foster placement
• Screening for infectious disease
• Creating isolation in foster care
• Treating infectious disease in foster care

Foster Vacation Planning: Improving Animal Health & Welfare 

Foster care reduces an animal’s length of stay in the shelter – which means animals will receive more individualized care sooner.

The first webinar in the 3-part foster care series will cover fundamentals for planning, organizing, and maintaining different types of foster programs — ranging from care for pups and kittens to fospice care for geriatric or ill animals. This free, 60-minute webinar is especially for shelters, rescue groups, as well as foster parents.

Dr. Newbury will review foster care topics including:

• Planning ahead to get animals into foster
• Advanced recruiting and on-deck systems to ensure enough foster homes are available
• Training foster caregivers
• Matching animal needs to caregiver skills
• Planning returns from foster homes
• Understanding financial requirements
• Understanding ongoing medical and behavioral care requirements

Let's Talk Fungus!

To conclude our popular ringworm webinar series, Dr. Sandra Newbury will answer your questions about ringworm in a 90-minute Q&A session. This free session will be beneficial for anyone who wants to prevent ringworm from impacting their animal populations, especially veterinarians, vet techs, animal shelter and rescue group leaders, line staff, and foster caregivers.