Volunteers shifting roles at Calgary rescue foundations
Three Calgary animal rescue foundations report that a growing number of volunteers, whose jobs entail fostering cats and dogs, are turning to adopting the pets instead of giving them up.
Tracy Babiak, president of Calgary’s Pawsitive Match Rescue Foundation, said that many volunteers progress into adopters after meeting the right pet.
“There’s always a dog that you just have to keep.”
Shelby Wishloff is one of those volunteers. She recently adopted her first foster dog, Sam.
“After he had lived with us for about a month, we knew that we just couldn’t give him up,” she said.
However, with more and more volunteers making the transition to adopters, Babiak said that volunteer numbers aren’t decreasing.
She said: “Sometimes if people have a limited amount of dogs that they’re allowed in the place they live then that ends the fosters. But a lot of the adopters do go on to foster or volunteer for us.”
Calgary Journal reporter, Jodi Twerdun, looks into this further.
jtwerdun@cjournal.ca