The animal shelters are at capacity. It can feel overwhelming and scary for the animals. Living with a foster family can be a gentler and less stressful way of waiting for a forever home.
While the animal benefits from the foster relationship, there are also gifts for their foster parents. In welcoming a shelter animal into your home, you experience unconditional love from the animal. You may also notice physical and emotional improvements in your health.
Every relationship with an animal comes with healing opportunities, and foster relationships are no exception. Animals choose us, and our souls choose them so that we can grow in specific ways. The animals that come into our life do so by a grand design.
My cat Rocky and I recently opened our home to a shelter dog named Maverick. True to his name, Maverick is intelligent and strong-willed. He is also gentle and affectionate. He arrived with the perfect combination of traits to help me heal in the ways my soul needs to grow. So, I bask in his love, and in the moments of struggle when we face a battle of wits, I am challenged to embody compassion and gratitude.
Rocky, Maverick, and I invite you to consider opening your heart to a shelter animal. You will get more than you give. Even if the lesson is to let go lovingly when the animal moves on to their forever home, you will have forged a lasting bond with your foster buddy. You will have opened your heart and increased your capacity to love and be loved. Your life will be sweeter and more joyful.