🎅🎉Happy Holidays from SSMR! 🎉🎅

There are many ways that you can help SSMR in a volunteer capacity. Not everyone is able to foster dogs, but there are many other tasks that we need assistance with.

Volunteers are needed to:  

• Call personal references of adoption and foster applicants.
• Check veterinarian references on potential applicants.
• Conduct home visits.
• Evaluate dogs that are potentially coming into the program.
• Provide Transport: Pick up dogs coming into the program from the shelter or their current owners and transport them to a foster home, their new adoptive home or for vet visits.
• Assist with social media.

Fundraising Assistance:

• Organize fundraising opportunities to support SSMR- ongoing and short term.
• Seek out organizations willing to partner with us for fundraising events.

Fostering:

Fostering is one of the most important roles in our organization. Foster homes provide a safe, stable environment for our rescued mastiffs. Fostering is a very rewarding experience and helps our rescue effort greatly.

Foster homes provide temporary housing for rescued mastiffs – either short term emergency fostering (for a night or two) or longer term while a mastiff is brought back to health (if needed), gets a training refresher, and is adopted. It also provides us with an honest assessment of a dogs

temperament (habits, personality), which is instrumental in helping to match a dog to a prospective family. 

To become a foster home, we follow a similar process as adoption, however instead of signing an adoption contract, a foster contract is signed. The first step is completing a foster application.  Please complete the application only if you are ready and able to commit to fostering a dog.  

Once we receive your application we will:

• Call your veterinarian to ensure any of your current/former pets were up to date on wellness exams and preventives.
• Set up a phone interview with you to review your application and answer questions you might have.
• Call your personal references.
• We may request a home visit.

All this information helps us understand the type of dog who would be the best fit for you to foster. If you do not hear from us, it does not mean that you are not approved, we often keep applications to foster on file for when the right dog for the home comes in.

Other considerations for fostering:

• Foster homes are required to have a fenced yard and we ask that our foster dogs not be left outside unattended when you are not home.
• We ask that our foster homes try to integrate their foster dog into their daily lives as much as possible. The quality time that you can spend each day with your rescue dog helps to learn more about their needs.
• If needed, foster homes should be able to separate the foster dogs from their own pets. Integrating a new foster into a home with other pets requires time and patience and needs to be done slowly. Crates can be a huge help to you in this process. A crate or ex-pen can be a cozy den to a stressed-out rescue dog and sometimes they need the privacy and quiet time as well, for their own peace of mind.
• Your foster Mastiff should be kept inside with the family except for exercise and elimination- aside from emergency boarding needs. 
• When leaving the house, always confine the rescue dog so you do not have to worry what will happen in your absence. Confining the rescued dog protects your pets and your property from any potential damage that could occur.
• SSMR provides needed vet care (with prior approval), The foster home provides a high-quality large breed food and commits to spend time to learn more about the foster mastiffs habits and temperament.
• Foster homes must also make the dog available for visits with prospective adoptive families. A foster does have the first right to permanently adopt a dog, but we require a decision on your interest as soon as you've had a chance to evaluate how the mastiff fits into your home.  The goal is to get the fostered dog matched with a forever home as soon as possible.

If you are interested in becoming a volunteer or foster home for SSMR, please fill out the form below.