Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 02/28/07
BY KATHLEEN HOPKINS
STAFF WRITER
Imagine hundreds of children packed into an orphanage built to house a little more than 100, with nowhere to go until they are adopted.
The thought of all those homeless children might be unbearable.
You might ask, What can I do to help? What about foster homes?
But children aren't the only ones who need foster homes.
There's Lucky, and Chester and Poochie. And Mac, Paws and Boots.
Those are just a few of the more than 200 animals awaiting adoption at the Monmouth County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals shelter in Eatontown, which was built to house 120 animals.
Although the SPCA will be breaking ground on a 4,000-square-foot addition this spring, it still relies on dedicated families to foster some of their animals until they can be permanently adopted.
Val Poli's family began fostering animals at their Middletown home four years ago at the urging of daughter Kelsey, who was then 14. The family's first foster animal was Contessa, a pregnant cat, Val Poli recalled.
"Contessa stayed with us for quite a while, five months," she said. "She had all the kittens. She found a wonderful home."
"It was bittersweet," Val Poli said. "My job is to make sure they are as adoptable as they can be, but then, we have to let them go."
Since Contessa, the Polis have fostered hundreds of cats and only recently started fostering dogs. They started with five puppies ? some Jack Russell terriers, border collies and a basenji. The dogs were sick and had to be nursed back to health, Val Poli said.
The Jack Russells and border collies found homes. The Polis permanently adopted the basenji, but continue to foster other animals.
Their newest foster dog is Mikey, who is son Carson's "project," Val Poli said recently at the SPCA facility as Carson caressed the Shih Tzu.
"It's fun to run around and play with him," said Carson, 12.
"It's fun to feed him, fun to play around with him and fun to watch TV with him," Shane Poli, 9, said of Mikey. "He's kind of like my alarm clock. He is pretty useful."
Said Carson of Mikey, "I really want to keep him. I keep begging my mom. He's really so cute and attached to me."
Debbie Elsinger of Shrewsbury, who has been fostering dogs for the SPCA for about a year, says she gets very attached to the animals.
"There was one in the fall, Rascal. I sat and I cried," said Elsinger, recalling when she had to give him up.
Now she is fostering Mable, a Yorkshire terrier who came to her as "a big puff ball of mats," until she cut her hair, Elsinger explained.
Other dogs Elsinger has fostered also needed attention. Three had been returned to the shelter by families because they bit, Elsinger explained. Once Elsinger had them awhile, she realized, "two of those were not that bad," she said.
Monmouth SPCA Executive Director Ursula Goetz explained that the foster families are helpful, not only in temporarily housing the animals but also in evaluating their potential to be permanently adopted.
"They get input on how to work with these animals," Goetz said of the foster families. "If they come back and say it's hopeless, then we know the animal is not adoptable."
Goetz conceded some of the animals, while housed in cages at the shelter, can be problematic.
"Out of a cage, it's a different personality, so this (the foster program) helps those animals," she said.
"One (Yorkshire terrier) we had for 10 weeks, Snickers, he was a brat," Elsinger said. "But if you let him know you were the boss and had some rules, then he was great. He's been adopted."
Val Poli says the foster program teaches her children responsibility while also helping to socialize the animals and ready them for adoption.
Goetz said the SPCA usually has between 20 and 40 foster families, but it can always use more, especially in the summer and because some of the families get so attached to the pets they permanently adopt them and drop out of the foster program.
Kathleen Hopkins: (732) 557-5732 or
khopkins@app.com http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art...1065/COMMUNITY