photo by: Mike Yoder

Members of the Chaput family, along with a few of their adopted and foster animals, from left, are Ranger, a shepherd mix; Cade Chaput; Eliza, a golden retriever; Sarah Lynch-Chaput; Theodore, 2; Savannah, 12, holding a foster kitten; and Kerrigan, 7. The Chaput family regularly fosters animals from the Lawrence Humane Society. A small terrier they're currently fostering, who is still being socialized, is not pictured.

When Sarah Lynch-Chaput’s beloved dog Sam died, she wanted to do something special in his memory, so she did something she thought he’d love.

“We decided to start fostering to help other dogs that were like him,” she said.

Lynch-Chaput and her husband, Cade Chaput, had adopted Sam, an Australian cattle dog, from a Topeka animal shelter in 2013, when he was 4 or 5 years old. When he died last year, they managed their grief by offering their home to dogs who were waiting in the shelter, like Sam once had, for someone to adopt them.

The tribute to Sam wasn’t a sentimental impulse, though.

“Before we did it, my husband was definitely worried about the amount of work it was going to be,” Lynch-Chaput said.

But the busy Lawrence couple — he’s a nurse; she’s a law student — and their three kids were pleasantly surprised.

“It’s been a lot easier than we anticipated, and the shelter (the Lawrence Humane Society) provides everything you could possibly need,” including food, bowls, gates, potty pads, a 24/7 call line, “you name it.” The shelter — and a network of more than 400 other foster families overseen by Rylee Clingingsmith, the Humane Society’s foster and transfer coordinator — even helps out with a sitter if you have a vacation scheduled or need to be away from home.

photo by: Courtesy of Sarah Lynch-Chaput

Foster dog Oscar is a small terrier with the Chaput family that needs some special attention as he came from an environment where dogs were being hoarded.

Though Lynch-Chaput generally fosters until an animal is adopted, other folks foster for two weeks or whatever time frame they can manage.

“It really is a good feeling knowing that you’re helping these dogs,” Lynch-Chaput said. “Every day they’re with you, that’s a better day than they would have had sitting in the shelter waiting to be adopted.”

Just a year — and numerous foster dogs and cats — into the experience, the family is hooked and plans to keep fostering indefinitely.

Besides the good feeling, it’s also fun to experience “all the different dog personalities,” Lynch-Chaput said.

The family has fostered dogs big and small, old and young, carefree and timid. Currently they are fostering a little terrier that came from “a hoarding situation” and needs some special love and attention.

photo by: Courtesy of Sarah Lynch-Chaput

Foster dog with Mya with her litter of puppies at the Chaputs’ house.

One of Lynch-Chaput’s favorite experiences has been fostering a pregnant pitbull mix who gave birth to a litter in her home in the middle of the night. Her kids got the special experience of waking up to the wonder of seven tiny puppies snuggling their exhausted mom — and, for the next several weeks, until the pups were old enough to be adopted, the kids got to learn little lessons about dog families and caring for animals.

The family’s golden retriever, Eliza, also happily helps out when puppies are around, giving the real moms an occasional break.

photo by: Courtesy of Sarah Lynch-Chaput

Kerrigan Chaput plays with a group of foster puppies who were born at her house.

So far the family has “failed” only once. A “fail” is foster lingo for keeping a dog forever instead of returning it to the shelter. That failure was Ranger, a shepherd mix — their fourth or fifth foster out of many — whose easy-going manner and life story irresistibly captured their hearts.

“We try not to, but he was a special case,” Lynch-Chaput said.

Though it can be a little sad to say goodbye to foster dogs who’ve been adopted, Lynch-Chaput said the knowledge that the dog is getting a forever home is overwhelmingly satisfying. It’s especially rewarding when you get an update from the forever home, she said.

“This summer I am interning, and on one of my first days a coworker brought their dog into the office,” she said. “I noticed it looked like the mom dog who had given birth at my house.”

After the two discussed the matter, they determined that the coworker’s new dog was indeed one of the puppies in question.

“He is living his best life, and it is so fulfilling to see that,” she said.

photo by: Courtesy of Sarah Lynch-Chaput

The Chaput family’s golden retriever, Eliza, is something of a puppy magnet, which gave their tired mom an occasional break.

While Lynch-Chaput’s family prefers to foster dogs, Paige Nicholson generally sticks with cats.

Nicholson started fostering last summer when she and her husband, Denis Nicholson, were living in Utah. She had been following some folks online who fostered cats, most notably the “Kitten Lady,” Hannah Shaw, and started “really getting into the stories of these kittens.”

“I thought it sounded like a really rewarding thing to do,” she said, so she tried it.

Her first experience was with a mother cat and kittens, and “that was just delightful, getting to watch the kittens grow,” she said.

photo by: Courtesy of Paige Nicholson

Paige Nicholson is pictured with Gyda, a foster kitten from the Lawrence Humane Society.

Nicholson’s husband, like Lynch-Chaput’s, “took a little bit of convincing to win him over to fostering, but as soon as he met those first kittens, he was sold,” she said.

When she and her husband moved to Lawrence last year so he could attend the University of Kansas, she wanted to keep fostering, but taking a job as an elementary teacher in Olathe (and expecting their first human baby soon) meant that she’d generally be too busy for kittens. So she did a little research to find out where she could be most useful in a way that meshed with her schedule. She landed on helping cats with ringworm, which is a very common fungus that’s basically harmless, if treated, but highly contagious, requiring cats to be separated from other animals at the shelter.

“Usually the best situation for those cats is to go into a foster home,” Nicholson said. “You give them an oral medication once a day, and the shelter staff are great at showing you how to do that. It takes five minutes.”

photo by: Courtesy of Paige Nicholson

Lawrence residents Paige and Denis Nicholson with their resident cat, Renge.

Fortunately, Nicholson’s own cat, a 3-year-old calico named Renge, is “not crazy about other cats,” which helps to keep the cats separated — and also to prevent a foster fail.

“It makes it easier for us to not hang on to the foster cat, as much as we love them,” Nicholson said.

photo by: Courtesy of Paige Nicholson

Paige and Denis Nicholson fostered Peep from the Lawrence Humane Society.

photo by: Courtesy of Paige Nicholson

Paige and Denis Nicholson fostered Big Papa from the Lawrence Humane Society.

Nicholson had high praise for the Lawrence Humane Society’s foster program. After fostering in Utah, where she sometimes had to procure her own supplies, she was happy to see that the Lawrence shelter provides everything a foster family might need.

“Here in Lawrence, you all have it good,” she said. “They take really good care of their foster families.”

While Nicholson plans to take a little break from fostering to welcome the couple’s new baby, she said she’ll be eager to get back into it.

“Everyone I’ve met who fosters and has kids just loves it,” she said. “The kids fight over the kittens’ names, and they snuggle the dogs. Those families share the sweetest stories about their kids and their foster pets.”

Nicholson might even branch out from cats and foster a dog or two, she said.

“There are so many different kinds of animals to foster – shelter-stressed dogs, mama dogs with puppies, mama cats with kittens, bottle-fed kittens, weaned kittens, kittens that need more socialization, medical-needs animals, senior animals, even small animals like rabbits or birds,” she said. “The trick is to find which is right for you.”

Lynch-Chaput expressed similar thoughts and encouraged anyone who might be curious about fostering to give it a go.

“Just give it a try, because even if it doesn’t work out you can always bring the animal back to the shelter,” she said. “No one is going to chastise you for something not working for your family.”

SOME FOSTER FACTS

The Lawrence Humane Society has had a foster program for at least 10 years. In the beginning, it had around 50 foster families. It now has 412, according to Elina Alterman, the shelter’s director of development and communications.

Fostering is a way not only to relieve the shelter of overcrowding but is also considered a best practice for socializing animals and acclimating them to eventually living full-time with a family.

Alterman said foster families are needed year round, and right now the shelter especially needs fosters for medium-to-large sized dogs and for kittens. In the last 60 days (May 22-July 22), the shelter has taken in 43 dogs as owner surrenders and 126 dogs as strays.

It’s also kitten season, which refers to the warmer months of the year when most cats have their litters. Alterman notes that cats can have up to five litters per kitten season as a cat’s gestation period is only eight weeks. So far this year, the shelter has taken in 536 kittens. “We take in anywhere from one to 35 kittens in one day,” she said.

Of those 536 kittens, 73%, or 390 kittens, have needed to go to a foster home for a period of time before they could be made available for adoption, “whether that was because they needed to get bigger, get older, get healthier, or learn to trust humans,” said Alterman, who is currently fostering and bottle feeding 14 kittens herself.

To learn more about fostering a shelter animal, see the Lawrence Humane Society’s website, lawrencehumane.org, or call 785-843-6835.

photo by: Courtesy of Sarah Lynch-Chaput

Cade Chaput with foster dog Bowser.