Groups Arrange Foster Care for Military Pets

National Guard, Jun 2004

Deploying overseas means leaving Mends and loved ones behind. For service members with no one to take care of their beloved dog, cat, bird or other pet, it once meant also having to abandon or turn the pet over to a shelter-never to see it again.

Thanks to two nonprofit groupsthe Military Pets Foster Project and Operation Noble Foster-service members can arrange foster care for their pets while they're gone.

The Military Pets Foster Project, a nonprofit group founded by animal lover Steve Albin, has placed about 15,000 pets in foster homes throughout the United States while their owners serve overseas.

Operation Noble Foster, which specializes in foster homes for cats, has lound temporary homes lor about 25 cats per month since Sept. 11, 2001, according to founder Linda Mercer.

Albin and Mercer established their groups shortly after the terrorist attacks, when they learned that thousands of service members had been forced to give up their pets when they deployed to Operation Desert Storm more than a decade earlier.

"What kind ol morale builder is that?" Albin said. "Does it mean that to serve, you have to be willing to put your best friend to sleep?"

He estimated the group has saved as many as 150,000 pets from being abandoned or turned over to shelters, where pets not adopted often are euthanized.

Albin matches pets in need of foster care with appropriate foster homes and requires those involved in the arrangement to sign a foster agreement.

MarkDelman of Parker, CoIo., signed up to provide a loster home lor live cats owned by a military family currently stationed in Germany.

"These people are keeping us sale and free, and shouldn't have to give up their beloved pets to do so," he said. "Oifering a foster home is a way ol saying 'thanks.'"

More information about the two programs can be found on their Web sites at www.netpets.org/netp/foster.php or www. operationnoblefoster. org.