Brief Outings, Temporary Fostering, and Weeklong Fostering: Matching Out-of-Shelter Programs to the Dogs in Your Care

If you operate, work at, or volunteer with an animal shelter, you already know shelters are difficult places for dogs to live. Noise that regularly exceeds safe limits for human exposure, confinement that restricts normal movement, the loss of predictability and control, and isolation from people and other dogs all add up to a stressful environment. We can see this stress manifest in two measures researchers often use to understand dogs’ experience: dogs in shelters tend to have elevated cortisol (a stress hormone) compared with dogs in homes, and they rest and sleep less than dogs in homes do.

One of the most consistently effective ways to improve a shelter dog’s experience is time with a person outside the kennel; time outside the shelter is even better. Over the past several years, our team at Virginia Tech — working across dozens of animal shelters in the United States — has tested three durations of foster care: brief outings of just a few hours, temporary fostering of one or two nights, and weeklong fostering. This publication summarizes what we found in those studies and, more importantly, helps you decide which program best supports the individual dog in your care.

Welfare Thoughts

The key to using these programs effectively is to keep in mind two distinct but related concepts of welfare. The first concerns proximal welfare: what the dog is experiencing right now, today. The second concerns distal welfare: what the dog’s eventual outcome from the shelter will be and how quickly it will occur. A program can help one without helping the other. As you will read below, brief outings are a good example of this: They do little to relieve a dog’s stress in the moment, yet they can greatly improve a dog’s chances of being adopted. Understanding this difference lets you choose the best approach for the dog in question.

A note before we begin: Throughout this research, differences among individual shelters were often as large as those caused by the programs themselves. In other words, your facility’s everyday conditions matter. These programs are powerful additions, but they work best alongside efforts to reduce noise, increase dogs’ rest in the kennel, and provide dogs with more comfort and choice throughout their day.

Brief Outings: A Few Hours Out of the Shelter

A brief outing is a one- to four-hour excursion off the shelter property with a staff member, volunteer, or community member. The dog might go for a walk or a hike, visit a pet-friendly store, or spend time at someone’s home before returning to its kennel.

The proximal welfare picture is counterintuitive. In a study of 164 dogs at four shelters, two-and-a-half-hour outings raised dogs’ cortisol levels in the afternoon of the outing rather than lowering them (Gunter et al. 2021). The good news is that the effect was temporary, and dogs’ cortisol returned to pre-outing levels by the next day. Higher cortisol is not always a sign of poor welfare, though. Owned dogs have elevated cortisol when they engage in activities they clearly enjoy, such as visiting a dog park or competing in agility. The crucial difference is that an owned dog goes home after those activities and can recover, while a shelter dog returns to the hustle and bustle of the shelter. An outing is an arousing, stimulating experience, not a calming one. The practical takeaway is that a brief outing, especially an energetic one in public, does not give a dog the opportunity to rest and recharge as an overnight stay at home does.

Brief outings have a strong positive effect on dogs’ distal welfare. In a large study of 51 shelters and nearly 2,000 dogs that received an outing, compared with almost 26,000 dogs that did not, dogs that went on brief outings were about five times more likely to be adopted than those that stayed in the shelter and did not participate in the program (Gunter et al. 2023). Outings also lower the barrier to participation more than any other program mentioned here: They take only a few hours and do not require caregivers to house the dog overnight, which addresses the two reasons people most often give for not fostering. In that same study, community members with no prior relationship to the shelter were the largest group providing outings, accounting for nearly half. Outings are, in effect, a low-commitment on-ramp that brings new people into your shelter and harder-to-place dogs into your community. 

Which dogs, and how: Use brief outings to increase the visibility of dogs who have been in your care for a long time and are coping reasonably well, while offering an approachable opportunity for new community caregivers who are not yet ready for an overnight commitment. If your goal is great marketing photos and videos or simply getting a dog seen, an outing is a smart choice.

One handling note from the research: Larger, heavier dogs tended to have shorter outings, most likely due to leash pulling and handler fatigue. Providing good walking equipment and a little handling guidance can help your bigger dogs (and caregivers) get the full benefits of the program. 

Temporary Fostering: One or Two Nights in a Home

A temporary foster stay sends a dog home with a caregiver for one or two nights and then returns the dog to the shelter. 

The proximal benefit is measurable. In a study of 207 dogs across five shelters, one- and two-night stays lowered dogs’ cortisol levels while they were in the home and gave them their longest stretches of uninterrupted rest (Gunter et al. 2019). When the dogs returned to the shelter, their cortisol rose again, but importantly, it was no higher than it had been before fostering. So, the overnight stay provided them with a break, and returning to the shelter did not leave the dogs worse off.

The distal benefit is the largest among any program the team studied. In the 51-shelter study, dogs with a temporary foster stay were roughly 14 times more likely to be adopted than dogs that were not fostered, far exceeding the fivefold effect of brief outings (Gunter et al. 2023). A stay in a home also generates something a kennel never can: information about how the dog behaves in a home with routines and with a family, which leads to much better adoption marketing and placement guidance. Caregivers who foster overnight are also more likely to adopt the dog themselves; about 12% of fostering stays ended in adoption, compared with about 4% of those that took dogs on outings (Gunter et al. 2023).

Which dogs, and how: Reach for temporary fostering when a dog is visibly struggling in the kennel and would benefit from a reprieve, and when you want detailed information about a dog’s behavior in a home environment to support placement (be it in a longer-term foster or an adoptive home). It asks more of the caregiver than an outing, so it pairs well with caregivers who have already done an outing or two and are ready for the next step.

Weeklong Fostering: Seven Nights in a Home

The most recent study in this series asked whether a longer stay extends the benefits of fostering. Eighty-four dogs at two shelters were followed for 17 days: five days in the shelter, seven in a foster home, and five back in the shelter (Gunter et al. 2026). 

Dogs’ cortisol levels were significantly lower during their week in a home than during either shelter period, and they spent more time resting. The magnitude of the improvement was about twice that seen with one-and two-night stays, indicating that more time in a home produced greater welfare gains for the dogs. Just as importantly, there was no meaningful difference between the dogs’ cortisol and activity before fostering and after they returned, so a week away did not set them back once they returned to the shelter.

This study also examined an idea that has received little attention: co-housing or keeping two compatible dogs in the same kennel. On its own, co-housing did not significantly change dogs’ cortisol levels. However, when a dog returned to the shelter after a week in foster care and was placed with a dog it had lived with before, the returning dog rested more and spent less time in high-intensity activity — both signs of better welfare (Gunter et al. 2026). Pairing a dog with an unfamiliar dog or housing it alone did not produce this benefit. The likely explanation is social buffering: The presence of a familiar companion lessens the stress of reentering the animal shelter.

The distal side of weeklong fostering has not yet been measured directly, but it is reasonable to expect that a longer, more informative stay would carry at least the adoption advantages seen with shorter fostering and quite possibly larger ones. Patronek and Crowe (2018) found that at a large, open-admission municipal shelter, dogs fostered for varying amounts of time were about five times more likely to leave the shelter alive compared to dogs who were surrendered by their caregivers and never fostered. An added benefit was that the dogs returned to the shelter in better physical condition than when they left. The study was observational in nature, so it cannot establish that fostering caused these outcomes, but the size and direction of the effect match what we would expect from a greater time in foster care — such as a week or more — and support the use of longer durations of foster care to improve dogs’ distal welfare.

Which dogs, and how: Use weeklong fostering for dogs that most need a substantial break from the shelter and to shorten the total time a dog spends in your facility, thereby reducing animal care costs. When a dog returns from any fostering stay, consider housing it in a kennel with a familiar, compatible companion rather than in an empty kennel or with a new dog.

Choosing the Right Program

The simplest way to think about these three fostering durations is to match the program to the individual dog and its needs.

If your goal is to relieve a dog’s stress and increase its rest, fostering is the answer, and longer is better. A weeklong stay produces the greatest improvement, a one- or two-night stay produces a solid improvement, and a brief outing produces little to no improvement. Brief outings are stimulating rather than calming, so they are not the best option for a dog struggling behaviorally and needing a break.

If your goal is to improve a dog’s chances of adoption and increase community involvement, brief outings are an excellent and underrated option. They roughly multiply a dog’s adoption odds by five, require very little of the caregiver, and introduce your dog to new people in the community. Temporary fostering does even more for a dog’s adoption odds, multiplying them roughly 14 times, but it asks more of the caregiver. If your concern is the stress a dog experiences when it returns to the shelter, pair the dog with a familiar, compatible dog upon reentry rather than housing it alone.

A practical way to combine these fostering interventions is to treat the programs as a ladder. Brief outings recruit new caregivers and build their confidence at relatively low cost and risk. As caregivers experience the rewards of caregiving, many will be willing to try an overnight stay and then a longer stay. This progression eases people into deeper involvement with the shelter while steadily increasing the benefit to the dogs, and it directly addresses the recruitment and retention challenges most shelters face in fostering.

Making These Programs Work

These foster programs performed best when a larger share of caregivers were community members rather than staff and volunteers alone, so lowering barriers to community participation is important. Better-resourced shelters had higher-performing programs, and municipal agencies tended to run lower-performing ones, suggesting that shelters that are either under-resourced or run by municipalities may need to pay extra attention to staffing support so they can launch and sustain these programs successfully.

Importantly, safety concerns should not be a barrier to your shelter offering these programs. Across nearly 3,000 outings and stays in the large study, bites were exceedingly rare — well under 1% of all experiences (Gunter et al. 2023). However, this research was conducted with dogs not known to have histories of aggression; those dogs were generally not enrolled, so shelters should continue to use that judgment when selecting dogs for outings and fostering stays.

Conclusion

Brief outings, temporary fostering, and weeklong fostering are three distinct programs that improve the welfare of dogs in shelters. Fostering, especially for longer periods, reduces a dog’s stress and increases its rest while it is in a home. Both fostering and brief outings substantially improve a dog’s odds of being adopted. Brief outings accomplish the latter at a remarkably low cost and are a powerful way to engage your community, even though they are not a relaxing experience for the dog. Co-housing dogs with a familiar canine companion can ease the stress of a fostered dog’s return. Used together and matched with the right dogs, these evidence-based programs can measurably improve both the daily experience and the ultimate outcomes of dogs in your shelter’s care.

References

Gunter, L. M., E. N. Feuerbacher, R. J. Gilchrist, and C. D. L. Wynne. 2019. “Evaluating the Effects of a Temporary Fostering Program on Shelter Dog Welfare.” PeerJ 7:e6620. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6620.

Gunter, L. M., R. J. Gilchrist, E. M. Blade, et al. 2021. “Investigating the Impact of Brief Outings on the Welfare of Dogs Living in US Shelters.” Animals 11 (2): 548. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11020548.

Gunter, L. M., E. M. Blade, R. J. Gilchrist, et al. 2023. “The Influence of Brief Outing and Temporary Fostering Programs on Shelter Dog Welfare.” Animals 13 (22): 3528. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13223528.

Gunter, L. M., J. M. Platzer, J. L. Reed, et al. 2026. “The Implications of Weeklong Fostering and Co-housing on Shelter Dog Welfare. PeerJ 14:e20608. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.20608.

Patronek, G. J., and A. Crowe. 2018. “Factors Associated With High Live Release for Dogs at a Large, Open- Admission, Municipal Shelter.” Animals 8 (4): 45. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani8040045.