Anonymous
Source: Santa Barbara Public Health Department
Santa Barbara County animal shelters are seeking three-day foster homes for all adoptable dogs at each county shelter for their fourth annual “Santa’s Slumber Party.” Foster homes will be given all the necessary supplies to make their temporary houseguests comfortable. Santa’s Slumber Party foster families will be matched with a dog of appropriate size and temperament for their household. The dogs will be picked up from the shelter on December 22nd and returned to the shelter on December 26th.
As the holidays approach, there are over 200 dogs in the Santa Barbara County animal shelters that are looking for homes. This means that not every dog will have the opportunity to spend Christmas with a family. The staff at all three county shelters want to change that – even just for a few days.
“This program not only allows a shelter dog some time away from an often stressful kennel environment, but we found that it also gives us a lot of great information on how a dog behaves in a home environment as opposed to a noisy shelter,” Community Outreach Coordinator, Stacy Silva said. Silva explained that the program has far-reaching benefits they didn’t even expect. “The dogs were exposed to more people and potential adopters that weren’t visiting the shelter and some of the dogs even found new families because of the Slumber Party program in the past.”
If you would like to help foster a shelter dog for four days over Christmas, contact Stacy Silva at stacy.silva@sbcphd.org or stop by your local Santa Barbara County Animal Services Shelter to pick up an application. Our volunteer matchmaker elves will be helping to ensure all shelter dogs are matched with the right home environment. Contact us today to be matched with a Santa’s Slumber Party dog.
