Who says holidays are only for humans? An animal shelter in Virginia reminds us that it’s not and that animals should have a special place in our homes during Thanksgiving dinner.
With the Thanksgiving holidays just around the corner, Richmond Animal Care and Control (RACC) has once again sent the invites out to those who are willing to host shelter pets for the holiday week. This means that volunteers get a chance to foster dogs or cats, make them feel loved while trying to find them a forever home.
This tradition has been going on for the last four years and this year’s the 5th time RACC is hosting this program. It aims to give shelter animals the chance to feel what it’s really like to be loved and cared for, how it feels to have a real family to take care of them and of course, a chance to find a family they can call their own.
Fostering animals isn’t all about making them happy and giving them a break from staying in the cages. It also gives humans and volunteers the opportunity to get to learn about the animal’s personality and get to know these loving pets better which may encourage them to adopt in the future. In fact, in the first year of the RACC program, over half of the shelter pets ended up being adopted by their hosts!
“It’s a fun twist to a traditional fostering situation for people who might’ve never done it before,” Christie Chipps Peters, shelter director of RACC, told The Dodo. “The shelter provides the supplies you need, such as food, medication and a crate, and the following Wednesday after Thanksgiving the pet comes back. But a lot of the times, the pets never have to come back to the shelter. We try to make it really easy for people to say yes and keep that pet forever.”
Peters also added that even people who never tried or considered fostering before reached out to their shelter so they can also host some of their animals. She’s very happy about how the number of animals who get to be invited for Thanksgiving has almost tripled this year. This way, more shelter pets get the chance to be cuddled, snuggled up and loved at least for a short while as they wait for a family to permanently give them just that.
“It’s a fun twist to a traditional fostering situation for people who might’ve never done it before,” Peters said. “The shelter provides the supplies you need, such as food, medication and a crate, and the following Wednesday after Thanksgiving the pet comes back. But a lot of the times, the pets never have to come back to the shelter. We try to make it really easy for people to say yes and keep that pet forever.”
We consider dogs and cats as pets but the people from shelters like RACC remind us that these pets are more than just animals. They are family members who also deserve love, care and a forever home.
For more positive news and inspiring stories, please feel free to visit Global Positive News Network.
