Look after a foster animal

Your foster placements lists the animals living with you as a foster right now. Each one has a record with what the shelter knows about it, and a place for you to add its weight.

Your placements

Each animal shows its placement type, such as Foster care, Bottle baby, Medical foster, Behaviour foster, Hospice foster or Emergency foster, and the date it came to you. If the shelter has a planned return date, it's shown too. That's a plan, not a deadline.

An animal drops off the list as soon as it goes back to the shelter. That's expected. Everything you wrote about it stays on its record.

If you're not set up as a foster caregiver, the page says so and links to the foster application (see Apply to adopt or foster › Apply to foster from your placements page).

Open an animal's record

1. Select Your foster placements in the portal menu.
2. Select Open the record on the animal.

About … shows its species, breed, colour, sex, age, whether it's desexed, allergies and ongoing conditions. These come from the shelter, and only the shelter can change them. If something looks wrong, say so in the journal or call them. If the shelter has set goals for the placement, they're under What we're aiming for.

Record a weight

Under Weights you'll see every weight recorded so far. To add one:

1. Enter the weight in Weight in kilograms, using numbers (for example 0.42 for a bottle baby).
2. Select Save this weight.

The weight is recorded against today's date, on the animal's record and in its journal. Anything from 0.01 kg to 250 kg is accepted. Weights only add to the list and never overwrite one. If you entered one wrong, say so in the journal and the shelter will fix it.

Write in the journal

For anything that isn't a weight, select Open …'s journal. See Write in a foster animal's journal.