Become a BDRUK foster

We urgently need foster homes in the UK. As a foster you will help our most vulnerable dogs, allowing them to come to the UK to live with you until they find their forever home.

How it works

Fosters play a vital role in the BDRUK team, taking dogs into their home and letting them learn how to live in a home for perhaps the first time in their life. It is an incredibly rewarding experience to watch a nervous and withdrawn dog blossom into a loving, happy dog. All our dogs require patience and understanding and will take time to adjust to their new surroundings allowing them to learn to trust and love their new family.

BDRUK are here to support you every step of the way, starting with the homecheck before you foster to ongoing advice and support when you have a dog in your care. We cover veterinary expenses for the dog while it is in your care.

Once your foster dog has arrived with you, BDRUK will continue to promote them for adoption and you will be asked to give regular updates and photos of your dog.

It can be bittersweet when your foster dog finds its forever home but you will know that you played an important part in helping it find its new, happy life. Many of our fosters are still in touch with their dogs adopted families and keep up to date on their latest adventures so you could find yourself with a little extended family!

Here are a couple of fostering experiences to give you more of an insight:

How to get started

Before we place a dog with you, we will arrange a home visit to ensure that you and the dog are a perfect match.

It is important that everyone in your family is keen to foster. It doesn't matter where you live or what type of house you live in, but you will need a secure garden and any children living with you must be over 10 years old. Most of the dogs are blind or partially sighted and have lived on the streets or in a shelter for some time. They are unassessed with children so, for the sake of the child and the dog we must put their welfare first. If you have visiting children, we need to know, but it won't preclude you from fostering. We would expect you to take the usual precautions as with any dog - do not leave a dog and child together unsupervised.

If you have other pets, you can still foster, we will always do our best to match the right foster home with the right dog. If you think you could offer a dog a loving, temporary home then the next step would be to send your address and telephone number to foster@bdruk.org and we can arrange your home check.

Expenses

Our foster carers do not get paid to care for BDRUK dogs. We ask that fosters home and feed our dogs whilst we find them their forever homes. BDRUK will pay for veterinary costs and third party liability insurance while the dog is in your care.

We ask that before visiting a vet (except in an emergency) you contact BDRUK first, our founder is a veterinary nurse with many years of experience and will be able to give lots of advice as a first step.

Transportation

Our dogs come to the UK by various methods, but most come by road from Romania. If they travel with Eli for Pets, the dogs leave Romania on a Tuesday evening and arrive in UK two days later. They are dropped off at kennels for a stay of 48 hours to satisfy DEFRA's requirements (the kennels we use are near Faversham in Kent, North Mimms in Hertfordshire and Babbington Hall Kennels and Cattery in Nottinghamshire). In some instances the dogs may come to you direct from transport, if this is the case it can be a drop in the night or early hours of the morning.

The dogs will be delivered to your home.

If you would like to foster a dog please email foster@bdruk.org and a member of the team will be back in touch to discuss next steps.