[Goodlad]

My wife and I have been fostering dogs for almost 9 years now for a local rescue. It can be a frustrating, stressful and sometimes heartbreaking experience. We've had fosters adopted and later abandoned/surrendered. We've had fosters we fell in love with and had to let them get adopted. We've had fosters get sick and die in our care, and also had them get adopted and die shortly after in their new owner's care. We've been in what feels like a constant cycle of housebreaking and behavior modification. We've been bitten, peed on, vomited on. We've had to break up fights between dogs, and occasionally been injured in the process. We've invested countless hours into taking dogs to vet appointments, adoption events, fundraisers, training classes and all the other things necessary to give the animals their best chance at finding successful "forever homes". We've replaced carpet and furniture and clothing and kids' toys and who knows what else because dogs have destroyed. (We have plank tile in the house now. Highly recommend it) In short it can be a lot of work and stress.

We've also had the joy of watching someone fall in love with a dog that you took from a mangy, scared basketcase to well-adjusted loving animal. We've got to see dogs go from not trusting any humans at all to wanting to greet every person they meet. We've seen several dogs we thought were never going to get adopted find their perfect match and become that person's everything. We've had countless puppy kisses and games of fetch or tug-of-war, and lots of bellies to pet and snuggles on the couch (yup, they go on the couch.) Most importantly we've saved over 150 lives at this point.

If it's something you're really interested in doing be prepared. As others suggested do your research on which group you want to be involved with. Find out policies on vet care, and what other assistance they will provide. You'll also find that foster families are a very compassionate group that will be willing to help out any way they can. We're always looking for more people to foster and want to make sure they have everything they need to be successful. Ask lots of questions of the more experienced foster people, and if you start getting frustrated with something talk to someone. Start out slow. A good agency will set you up with a dog that doesn't have major behavior issues for your first time, and likely it will be a dog they view as a short term foster. Oh, and for your first one I wouldn't recommend getting a puppy.
I hope you give it a chance.