If you can offer a temporary caring home to a pet in need, it might be time to join a foster roster.

“Fosters save lives,” says Michelle Montak, founder of Gimme Shelter Animal Rescue in Sagaponack, LI. “It’s such a wonderful thing for people to do. It teaches compassion, kindness and responsibility for another being.”

Gimme Shelter is one of the growing number of rescue organizations that don’t have kennels and depend on fosters to house dogs before they are adopted. “You basically take the dog in, you socialize them, you train them, you do everything you would if it was your own dog,” says Montak. 

While foster parents for Gimme Shelter aren’t paid, they also don’t incur any financial toll. “We cover any vet expenses or any medical bills that might arise,” explains Montak. “We also cover some food if the foster needs us to pay for that.”

She says her fosters, on average, keep an animal between two and seven weeks. “We’re very lucky, and we have a few families who foster for us regularly. They’ll take a dog, and when that dog gets adopted, they’ll immediately take another one.”

Occasionally, a foster will take in a pair of pups. “There are certain cases where you want to keep them together,” says Montak. “We had a couple of adoptions recently where the dogs were bonded, and the foster agreed to take both of them, and then we adopted them together.”

And sometimes fostering leads to adoption. “We call them foster fails; that’s the rescue term,” says Montak with a laugh. “People get attached. These dogs are magical beings.”

Want to become a foster? If you live in New York, New Jersey or Connecticut and are at least 21 years old, have a fenced property, permission to have an animal in your home and a schedule that allows you to take care of a dog, simply fill out the application form on Gimme Shelter Animal Rescue.

“We’re always looking for fosters,” says Montak. “I have so much respect and admiration for our foster families. They’re amazing.”