Ideally yes, but in some cases we have to move very fast to help an animal and the home inspection may come at a later date.

WCAHS covers all vet costs with APPROVED vet clinics.

Waseca Vet Clinic 507-835-1700 – 1400 State Street, Waseca Summer’s Ridge Vet Clinic. 507-234-6929- 209 East 1st Street Janesville

If the board or one of the animal coordinator has not approved you may be responsible for the difference in cost from are approved vet.

Before the animal is taken to the vet a board member or animal coordinator must approve. If this is your first time fostering with WCAHS a board member or animal coordinator may make the first appointment or at the very least alert the clinic that we have a new foster and give them your name and contact number. From this point you are able to make the appointment that fits with your schedule.

Not in most cases. But if we get pet food donations we distribute to the foster homes. If a vet prescribes special food then WCAHS will cover the costs, only for the WCAHS animal, and only for the approved time the vet advises it needs to be on special feed.

No – but because WCAHS is a 501.(c)3 organization you can track your mileage and personal expenses (saving receipts) and write this off on our taxes.

Yes in most cases if we have the equipment on hand and available we would pass it out as needed. Some fosters may choose to purchase something other than what WCAHS can provide. You should save the receipt and account for it on your taxes as in most cases we do not have a budget to reimburse.

About twice a month, typically on a Saturday or Sunday there will be a Meet and Greet event held at a participating store. Pet Expo, Petco and TSC located in Mankato and Bomgaars in Waseca. They typically go for about 3-4 hours. Anyone who fosters an animal is expected to make as many of these as possible. If you can’t get there please let someone know on the board so pickup and transportation can be arranged to and from event.

Each foster is responsible for taking photos of the pets. 3 very different shots. One that shows the full body, close headshots, and a personality shot. The foster also is responsible for writing the bio for the animal. These images and bio can be sent to the WCAHS email with “PetFinder Bio-pet name” in subject line. One of the admin’s of pet finder will upload the information. Every 3 weeks or so - update photos should be sent and any different personality traits that may have been discovered. wcahsadoptions@gmail.com

WCAHS has a private FB page that only the volunteers can see. We can communicate back and forth by tagging people we want to be sure to see the information. We also post events on this page to track who can make it and who can’t. There are links located on top of the page, like event, click on event and your search results will be all of the upcoming and past events. For those that do not have access to the Internet, WCAHS a meeting is a good place to stay caught up so make a point to attend.

All of these documents can be found on the FB Volunteer page. Upper right hand corner you will find a search field. You can type in key word, for example, minutes could be typed in and a list of all of our past minutes will show as a result. You can type in persons name in this field and you can find all conversations this person participated in. If you type in Vet you will see our vet protocol recommendation doc. As always if there is addition questions a board member or experienced volunteer can help.

Ideally we would like the fosters and volunteers to check this page daily. But there are days we are monitoring this page all day for updates and other information that can help us react to animal situations and keep appointments.

The meetings are typically held the first Wed. of every month unless there is a holiday or another reason to change the date. Board will determine location. Staying in touch with a board member or asking to be texted or emailed of where the meeting will be can be arranged.

You can upload your photos to the FB volunteer page and tag one of the FB admin’s so they are aware you have uploaded a photo. It is a great idea to take lots of photos and video. The more fb time an animal gets doing funny thing or in an engaging picture, more likely the animal will get adopted faster. Please include the animal’s name, as it can be hard for the admin’s to keep track of all animals.

Pet of the week is written once a week by one of our volunteers. You should pick one of the best photos of the pet you are fostering and write a short story about the pets personality and what it likes and dis likes. Please put in the bio how old the animal is. Doing this right away will insure your animal will get in line quickly to be part of pet of the week. Pet of the week usually gets lots of attention and adopted more quickly. This is located in the local Waseca Paper. Sometimes are articles will get picked up by other papers.

On average 3 weeks as that gives us time to get the vet work done and access the animal’s behavior. But we have had animals as long as year. So don’t put the pressure of time on yourself or your family. This should be an enjoyable experience.

Because we are so small and have so few fosters, you may have to be creative and think of ways to make it work while the board gets together and figures out a solution. Many times by posting questions on the FB volunteer page, we can help figure out a solution.

Please let the board know well in advance and a plan will be made with another volunteer to watch your foster animal for the time you are gone. If we don’t have an available foster WCAHS will pay for board on the animal at one of our approved board facilities. This has to be approved.

• The board will approve the application.
• The application will be forwarded to the foster.
• The foster will communicate opinion of the applicant to the animal coordinator.
• Animal coordinator may call or have the foster call applicant to gather further information.
• The board will assign someone to do a home visit but in some cases this could be waived base on situation.
• The foster or animal coordinator will call the applicant and set up a time and place for a meeting/pick up of the pet. The foster may be able to handle the pick up process alone depending on situation and how long the fosters has been with WCAHS.
• The applicant will have 7 days to decide if the animal fits in their schedule.
• A check must be made out to WCAHS before the animal can leave. This check will be held for 7 days.
• Within those 7 days the animal coordinator is coordinating communication on how the animal is doing. If there are questions WCAHS can’t answer the foster will be contacted.
• The foster, again depending on experience may be asked to do final paper work with the new family. But in most cases the animal coordinator will handle this.
• WCAHS will try to leave your spot open for those 7 days-in case the animal does not fit in, it can be returned to a place it is familiar.
• Minimal disruption is key.

Depending on the situation and what the animal’s needs are, prior approval, before taking the animal in is needed as WCAHS has to see if we have the budget and place for an additional animal. IF you still decided to take the animal in without approval, understand you may have to pay for some or all of the cost incurred. You may also have to foster the animal, as we may not have an immediate place. Please remember to keep the animal separate from your personal pets and any WCAHS animals you may be fostering, as we have to be careful of transmittable diseases. If the animal is so ill or hurt that it needs immediate vet attention do what needs to be done, but again be reminded board approval is ideal, but we all understand situations can happen. WCAHS will try to support as much as possible but no assumption of help should be assumed. Again we can only do what our resources will allow.

Always upon intake of a new foster animal it should be quarantined away from your other pets for at least 3 days to watch for signs of any internal illness or external skin conditions. You will be monitoring for lack of appetite, general personality, how bowls movements are, any skin conditions, eyes should be clear, and in general just keeping anything the animal may have brought in to one area of your house incase there is a problem.

Please advise the board immediately. You can give the potential owner surrender person one of our surrender forms and explain we are a foster based organization which means we will need to have the surrender form completely filled out before WCAHS can re-act. We are here to help but very rarely can we take anything in immediately. We typically need at least 24 hours.

Your first concern should be your personal safety! From there, depending on the situation contact a board member and see what advice you will receive. If it is an emergency situation call 911 and wait for an officer before you go into or on private property. Very rarely should you go to a home or on anyone’s property without permission from the homeowner and not by yourself. Typically reporting such neglect to the authorities is your first step. Advising people who ask you about these situations is a good answer as well. As always talking to a board member can help guide you.

Minnesota Spay Neuter Assistance Program. From time to time WCAHS does sponsor the mobile unit in Waseca and we then coordinate cat trapping and other foster animals to attend. As this is a lower cost to the rescue then vet clinics. We always need the fosters and volunteers to help host this mobile clinic. These mobile units are very local many times throughout the year so you may often here us talking about taking several animals to these clinics depending on where they are hosted. Mankato is a town we will travel to. Again always need help transportation animals to and from.

We have not hosted this unit but we do refer many people to this unit and fosters have taken their animals to this clinic when it is locally hosted as this is another inexpensive way for our rescue to get vet services at a reduced rate.

If you have a personal animal that needs to be sterilized like barn cats for instance, you would need to get approval from the board and then we would put the animals under our name. You would then pay WCAHS the cost of the procedures. We don’t like to make this a common practice but it is something we can consider case by case.

A feral cat is a cat who has either never had any contact with humans or its contact with has diminished over time. It is fearful of people and survives on its own outdoors. A feral cat is not likely to ever become a lap cat or enjoy living indoors.

A stray cat is a cat that has been socialized to people at some point of its life but has left its domestic home, as well as most human contact and dependence. Over time a stray cat can become feral as its contact with human dwindles. Under the right circumstances, however, a stray cat can become a pet cat again. Stray cats that are re-introduced to a home after living outdoors may require a period of time re-acclimate. A stray cat is a domestic cat that has been abandoned or has strayed from home and has become lost.

No, you should not be monitoring buy and sell ad on the Internet or Craig’s list for animals in need. You also should not be going to cat feed plot areas of known areas of feeding to capture cats/kittens to bring in our rescue. We are still to small to take on all of that and we need to be available and responsive to the immediate needs of owner surrenders, pound animals, and stray/lost animals that have not other place to go. We have to understand we cannot save them all and these rules are in place so we don’t get in over our head.

The city of Waseca DOES NOT support the feeding of cats in town. So as an organization we can’t support this activity by donating food to those that feed town cats or encourage this behavior as we need the cities support to do work in the community. If you choose to do this activity, you are doing this on your own and should not use our rescue name to justify this activity.

? If there are terms you don’t understand please ask the vet or vet assistance when you are taking your animals in. Also you can ask any of the board members or the more experienced volunteers. A list of most common tests can be found on our vet protocol document on the FB Volunteer page.

Throughout the year WCHAS has many fundraising activities and we need help from fosters and volunteers to make them a success. They typically are in Waseca or local towns near Waseca. Always looking for ideas to fund raise. Fundraising committee will typically meet before the general meeting first wed of the month.

The money we have in our budget is from the community and adoption fees. The Waseca County or the City of Waseca does not fund us. In all conversations with people we help and those that have questions we try to make this very clear so there is not an assumption we have a stead flow of money to support our activities.

No we are available to help wherever we are needed and do whatever we can within the constraints of our budget and volunteer capacity.

Please have them call all local authorities, local vet clinics, city pounds, post on FB on LOST DOGS, and also send WCAHS a photo, where the animal was lost, when lost, location (as specific as possible) and a contact phone number. The email they should use is wcahsadoptions@gmail.com with the subject line LOST PET. An admin will post it to our Official FB page to help network.

As a foster this happens quite often. The cost of the adoption is typically $125.00 for dogs and $50.00 for a cat.

By sharing posts from our FB page is expected. If we post something about a foster that is available for adoption, we would expect our volunteers to share that post on their personal page. Also lost pet posts, requests for fundraising, for more volunteers and events. All is the expectation of the board, that volunteers share these posts on their home pages. It is a FREE activity and can make a world of difference in how we network. You never know how far one share can reach!

Absolutely! But always remember once you identify yourself as a volunteer you need to behave in a professional objective manner. You should not go off on personal tangent, either in person, or on FB posts. We are to be perceived by all who associate with us, as a mature, professional, proactive group that gets the job done professionally! This is how you will recruit other like-minded folks.

We cannot tell you who you can and cannot foster for. But it does become hard for the board to know who will be available to foster if they get requests. The board may believe a foster is open, and plan on taking an animal in only to find out the foster has taken on an animal from another rescue. This puts strain on how fast we can re-act.