This story was reported and written by our media partner the Virginia Mercury.
While living alone in an apartment in Hampton Roads, about 20 minutes from his work as an E5 (petty officer, second class) at Naval Station Norfolk, David Morrow decided it was time to look for an animal companion to enrich his time off-base.
“My little dog, named Lola, (is) a very energetic lab. She’s about four,” said SCA2 David Morrow. “I picked her up from the shelter in August of last year. I wanted somebody around in the house, she seemed the most comfortable with me.”
Several months ago, Morrow got word that he was about to be deployed.
“My ship had just come back from a normal exercise and then we got told right after the exercise that, ‘Hey, in about 2 weeks, we’re going to be deploying,’” he said. “It kind of freaked me out a little bit because we had a different schedule initially. But things changed due to the geopolitical climate.”
Morrow needed to quickly find a home for Lola while he was away, which could last for months or years. First, he checked the pet sitter site Rover.
“They’re super, super expensive,” he said. “I’m (also) looking for military options, but they just didn’t have any openings.”
That’s when he came across the website Operation Foster.
The nonprofit specializes in placing the pets of military personnel into temporary foster homes while the service members are deployed or are seeking treatment for conditions like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Operation Foster falls under the umbrella of the PACT Act, which is part of veterans’ healthcare benefits.
Morrow’s failed search for other military options to help him with Lola left him jaded, but he tried Operation Foster anyway.
“I reached out on a Tuesday. They got back to me Wednesday afternoon. They found somebody within two days,” he said. Lola was eventually placed with a foster home in Westwood, New Jersey.
Operation Foster has fostered and reunited over 3,500 pets nationwide, said Giselle Boretto Fetterman, the organization’s development director.
“It’s not just dogs. It’s been dogs, cats, bunnies, snakes and a horse. And all kinds of reptiles,” Fetterman said. “We’ve learned that folks in the military really have interesting pets. In life, you don’t plan for a crisis, right?”
How it works
Signing up an animal for foster care is an easy process, said Jody McGovern, the nonprofit’s operations specialist. There’s an application form on the website that ends up in McGovern’s inbox.
“We do a qualification process, making sure that animals are up to date on vaccines, that they’re fixed, that they have a good temperament, and that nobody’s aggressive,” she said.
“Once they’re qualified, it goes over to our foster coordinator and she tries to find a foster in our database. And if for some reason, we don’t have somebody, we also post online and on social media, and we do outreach to try to find more.”
Once a pet is placed, it’s up to the owner to pay for all care and expenses.
“We actually have a process, where basically if it’s vet care, the owner leaves a credit card with the vet so that the foster never has to pay ahead. We also have them set up online pet supplies so food, any supplies the pets need, are being automatically delivered,” said McGovern.
And, as was the case for Morrow’s labrador Lola, the foster may not be in the same location as the veteran. The goal is to keep the pet as local as possible, with an understanding that military members are very transient.
“Oftentimes we’ll get a placement and they’ll say, ‘this is where I’m based out of, but I’m actually in training (in) this other state. And then I’m going to be moving to this place’” Fetterman explained. “There are cases where the foster is literally your physical neighbor, and we love when that happens, but that’s not always the case.”
For Fredericksburg resident Wendy Weldon, the choice to foster a veteran’s animal was a no brainer. She has family in the military and knows how to take care of pets. But it was her first time being a temporary pet parent.
“I started looking on the internet after we lost our dog Duke last year, and Operation Foster came up,” she said. “I was interested in any dog, but then Chopper came up and I was like, ‘oh, he’s really cute. We could probably do that.’”
Chopper, whose owner is in the Marine Corps Reserves, is from Massachusetts. He’s been with Weldon since January who regularly sends updates to Chopper’s owner, Pfc. Samuel Compail.
“We’ve been able to communicate via pictures, texts. I send him information, (such as) vet bills and food costs,” Weldon said. “He’s 21 years old and he’s so responsible.”
Fetterman said that Operation Foster has helped foster veteran’s animals in all 50 states, including many who live in rural areas of the country that lack a solid fostering community.
She added that many vets now have options when they’re about to deploy or when they’re trying to seek medical help, thanks to the program.
“Now they’re finally at this point in their life deciding to seek mental health treatment or to address an old PTSD they’ve been carrying all this time. And there may not be someone in the community that is available,” she said.
“ In those cases, we ask them, ‘What’s the distance that you’re comfortable expanding?’ … We have to be creative and our goal is always a successful match, a successful reunification.”
Fetterman said they also partner with different shelters and organizations to achieve that goal.
“We’ve worked with domestic violence situations and shelters will tell you, there are women that will not leave a domestic situation because they’re worried about their dog,” said Fetterman.
They also partner with Roger, the hotline for suicide prevention for current active military personnel and veterans.
“If you call 988 anywhere in the country, you are directly connected to a suicide crisis (specialist). When they start asking you questions, they’ll ask you, ‘Are you a veteran?’ If you’re a veteran and they ask, ‘do you have a pet,’ they’ll refer them to us,” Fetterman said.
The best part of the fostering process, McGovern said, is when they hear back from either the foster family or from the veteran who sought help.
“There was a soldier and her husband, both deployed. They had two dogs, and they were only supposed to be gone for two years, but it got extended (and) ended up being away for three years. The video that they sent us was incredible,” said McGovern. “Those dogs remembered exactly who they were, practically knocked her over.”