When people who foster rescue animals break down and adopt the animal instead, you’ve happily committed a “foster flunk.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Foster Flunk”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. Grant, I learned a new term this week. I wonder if you know it.
Oh, try me.
Foster flunk.
Nope. Nope. Never heard of it. What is it?
Well, I learned this from Scott Kaiser, who listens to us in Hammond, Indiana.
And Scott sent us an email that said,
When you foster companion animals, dogs, cats, rabbits, ferrets, etc., your job is to care for it as if it were your own, with food, shelter, medical care, and above all, since some of these animals have never known it, love.
Scott writes, I’ve had people say, I don’t know how you can give them up to another adopter.
Well, sometimes you can’t.
You flunk and end up adopting them yourself.
That’s the flunk.
The foster flunk.
Foster flunk.
Isn’t that great?
I wondered the same thing, actually, how people give up the animals when they’re fostering them.
I know.
Because it’s a really long foster period, right?
Yes.
One of our kitties, Bianca, she’s a sweet little tabby.
She’s got a bent tail.
She has adorable green eyes.
She was fostered with a friend of ours.
And their story was they gave her up to us.
We adopted her because they were moving across the country.
And that makes a lot of sense to me.
But I also know that the need for kind families that can foster animals, rehabilitate them, introduce them to kids, introduce them to other animals.
There’s a desperate need for that.
So you kind of got to cycle the animals through sometimes.
Yeah.
Get them elsewhere on the, put them elsewhere on the adoptive schedule.
Yeah, yeah.
It’s almost more important.
Yeah.
In a way.
Well, Scott says that he’s flunked three times.
That’s the best kind of flunking.
Yes, yes.
He has a Lhasa Apso, a Shih Tzu, and a Bishan.
Oh, nice.
Thanks, Scott, for that.
That’s cool.
Foster flunking.
And it’s a thing.
I went to Google.
Oh, good.
Yeah.
To Google.
It’s a thing.
Foster flunking.
We heartily encourage foster flunking on this show.
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