Cheryl West has a big heart.
The 37-year-old resident of Chicago’s Mount Greenwood community said she probably inherited it from her parents, Thomas and Mary Ann West, retired Chicago police officers who sometimes would bring to their South Side home “a random cat or dog and find a home for it instead of sending it to the shelter,” West said. “They’re definitely both animal lovers.”
West is applying the “sense of service” she feels her parents instilled in her to her own home, where she has fostered more than 100 dogs and cats for the Chicago Heights-based South Suburban Humane Society over the last 21/2 years, she said.
It has been a labor of love for West, a special-education and ESL teacher at Thornridge High School in Dolton. It requires several hours a day to care for animals that often are sick, wounded or in need of special care to socialize them.
West said her son Michael Haynes, 16, helps with the animal care.
“If he wasn’t here with me we couldn’t do all the work we do,” West said. “We have a routine every day.”
West’s volunteer foster care began in early 2013 when she heard about the “Dolton 7,” seven pit bulls rescued from a dogfighting ring in December 2012. Police took all of the dogs to the South Suburban Humane Society for care and rehabilitation, West said.
“I didn’t even know the South Suburban Humane Society existed, but I started following them then on social media and we decided that we wanted to volunteer,” West said.
She began by walking dogs at the shelter — first the rescued pit bulls, and then other dogs. West said she had no reservations about caring for the pit bulls or any others.
“I’ve grown up with German shepherds, and my dad has a Rottweiler and I have my own German shepherd, and so large dogs don’t bother me,” West said. “Neither do pit bulls. They’re actually very loving with people. Their issue was usually other dogs and some of them are actually residents with other dogs now and doing very well.”
West then began volunteering at the shelter’s off-site events. When the shelter started a “very organized foster-based program,” West said she decided to give foster care a try.
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“I took in a foster dog and then kept going with it,” she said.
West said her own animals — the late Gypsy, an 11-year-old German shepherd, and Charlie, a 14-year-old cat adopted many years ago from the Animal Welfare League of Chicago Ridge — both were very accommodating despite sharing West’s three-bedroom raised ranch home with strangers.
West said Gypsy was an “amazing” dog who loved to “mother” other animals and didn’t react about them coming into the home, even if other dogs growled or barked at her.
The Wests’ foster home has worked out especially well for Rocky, a 5-year-old, three-legged Pomeranian stray who was hit by a car in February and taken to Forest South Animal Hospital in University Park by Park Forest police.
When the South Suburban Humane Society took over Rocky’s care, West offered to foster him. She said his medical care — surgeries for a broken pelvic bone, broken jaw, broken leg and leg amputation — was covered through a Facebook fundraiser. Rocky is out of the woods but still requires medical care, and West said she spends a good deal of time getting Rocky back and forth to follow-up veterinarian visits. She doesn’t mind. He’s part of the family now.
“We’ve since adopted him,” West said. “We couldn’t let him go.”
West said her adoption of Rocky reflects one of the fears of would-be shelter volunteers who say they worry that they would not be able to give up a foster animal after caring for it in their homes. West said Rocky notwithstanding, most foster parents are glad to see their foster animals going to a loving “forever home.”
“I think I saw the need (for fostering) at the shelter because it opens up a cage for another homeless animal and also gives the animal a transition into their forever home,” West said.
West encourages anyone who is thinking about becoming a foster parent to give it a try. She said no special accommodations are necessary to foster most animals, training is available at the shelter and help is only a phone call away.
“With the support of the shelter — they’re amazing — you can reach the staff at any time to help you through things or you can bring the animals in,” West said. “My heart is really there. They are totally nonprofit so they function on people like you and I either fostering or donating or coming in to volunteer. If anyone’s looking for a place to help, they’re definitely a great place to do so.”
For more information, visit www.southsuburbanhumanesociety.org or call (708) 755-7387.
Ginger Brashinger is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.