Fostering: the Bitter, and the Sweet

You may already know, but Sara and I (Kat) have been fostering for the Metropolitan Guinea Pig Rescue since the very beginning of 2020.

(And what perfect timing, as we ended up with two extra guinea pigs to love during the first few months of quarantine! Wednesday and Delaney will forever be known as our quarantine piggies, as they were stuck with us for several months while the rescue was not able to host adoption meets.)

We will go into depth later about how and why and how we started fostering, but I wanted to talk about something that’s been on my mind lately.

Fostering has been an absolutely wonderful experience, for so many reasons. Caring for a couple extra piggies brings us so much joy. The boys are equally excited and they love having other guinea pigs to talk to through the cage bars. They are obsessed with the girls! After living in our home with only boy piggies for a few years, it’s been a nice change of pace for them.

We get to be a part of a community within our rescue, and we have met dozens of other wonderful and crazy guinea pig people. Whenever we have questions or concerns about the fosters, or even our own boys, help is always available. We now know the best vets, the best kinds of food and hay, and have a large group of people to crowd-source answers from when we need them. The rescue welcomed us right from the start, and we genuinely enjoy the monthly adoption meets.

There are countless ‘sweet’ moments and memories from the past twelve months, but with the sweet comes the bitter. The most frequently asked question we get when we tell people we foster is “how do you not end up keeping them?!” (The rescue calls it ‘foster fails.’) And let me tell you, that was definitely our biggest concern going into fostering.

Giving them back is really hard! We pour so much time and love into these foster pigs only to give them up a month or two (or more) later. It’s very difficult to say goodbye. We might have had a couple of close calls in the past, where we were afraid we were not going to be able to part with a piggie. However, as much as we have been tempted in the past, we simply do not have the resources to keep more guinea pigs long term.

We love fostering because of the temporary nature; it allows us to have more flexibility both in the short and long-term, while also fulfilling a great need for foster parents with a satisfying experience. Having guinea pigs, whether fosters or your own, is a big time commitment in the long-run. Starting over with young pigs seems very daunting, and we are not sure we will still have the time several years down the road to give the piggies the time and attention they truly deserve.

Like many things in life, fostering comes with its ups and its downs. This experience brings us immense joy and contentment, but it does come with its sad moments. At the end of the day, we need to remind ourselves how lucky we are to be able to be part of each guinea pig’s life. When the time comes for them to go home with their furever family, we know they are in wonderful, loving, and capable hands.