Don’t Walk, RUN to Your Local Animal Shelter

For those of us with pets at home, we know that a huge negative of college is having to say goodbye and leave them behind. Having pets around is fantastic for mental health and we really feel their absence when they’re not around. Lucky for us at Elon, we have great shelters in the area with awesome opportunities to foster animals or simply hang out with one for a day. 

Burlington Animal Services, our nearest animal shelter, is super reliant on college students being loving homes to animals while they await adoption. In fact, over half of BAS’s foster families are Elon students. Shelter manager Elizabeth Overcash said students make great homes because there aren’t other pets or kids around, and living environments with several roommates are great for socializing the animals. 

So why should you get involved? Fostering obviously has many benefits for the animals, but it’s also an amazing experience for the families. When fostering through Burlington Animal Services, you get all of the materials and support you need to care for the animals. It’s also less of a financial strain than adopting a pet and still gives you the flexibility to plan your time around being a foster parent for traveling, going home for breaks, etc. 

Alison Sawyer and Mackenzie O’Gara, two Elon juniors, are super familiar with these benefits. They started fostering animals about two weeks into their freshman year after discovering there wasn’t much to do in Burlington and missing their puppies at home was the worst. Their first foster experience involved ubering back from the shelter with three cats and sneaking them into their dorm in Historic. Pretty iconic shit. In the past three years, they have fostered 25 animals through Burlington Animal Services, mostly dogs and puppies. 

“There’s a lot of benefits to being with a dog, it just calms you down,” Alison said. “It’s so fulfilling. We can do a lot for the animals, but they do equally as much for us. Every time that we have an animal we’re more on top of our school work, we’re in better moods, we’re outside more… it keeps us structured.” 

“It’s so nice to cuddle up on the couch with a dog after a hard day,” Mackenzie added. We can’t imagine how comforting that would be. 

Alison (left) and Mackenzie (right) with their foster pup Blu. Photo: Alison Sawyer.

Now onto the question we’re all wondering, how much does it suck to give them up? Alison and Mackenzie said it’s not as bad as they thought it would be. They said that when you go in with the mindset of helping the animal find a good home and knowing it’s a temporary setup, it’s hard to feel sad after seeing the animals find their forever homes. They see it as a cause to celebrate, and always hit the town after one of their foster pets gets adopted.  

Foster families also play a huge role in finding adoptive homes for their animals. The shelter encourages people to promote their fosters, and they’re responsible for meeting up with prospective adopters so the pets can meet them and make sure it feels good. Alison and Mackenzie took it a step further and decided to start an Instagram page, Foster_Mamas, to bring more attention to their pets. If you have any specific questions about fostering, hit them with a DM! They love what they do and are happy to help. 

Have you ever seen something more adorable? Photo: Alison Sawyer.

So, if you’re missing animal energy in your life but don’t have the ability to commit to adopting a pet, fostering might be the thing for you! It’s a great way to fill that pet need in your life, and it’s a great thing to do for the animals.

“It’s really, really rewarding to see how much an animal transforms from the first time you got it to when you get it ready for adoption. It’s amazing how much they open up and trust you and start to show their personalities because sometimes they’re so scared at first, Mackenzie said. “Some of them don’t even know what a toy is.” 

If you’re looking for any more information, check out Burlington Animal Services’ foster page.