Foster care is the closest thing adoption offers to a trial run in a real home, and a foster carer who has lived with a rescue dog for weeks knows things no kennel assessment can show. The value of that knowledge depends on the questions you ask. Labels like good with children or fine with cats compress very different histories into the same phrase, so your job is to unpack them: what exactly has this dog lived with, for how long, under what supervision, and what did the dog actually do? Foster carers are volunteers who know the dog as an individual, and most answer detailed questions with relief.
Children: ask ages, settings, and supervision
Ask what ages of children the dog has genuinely spent time with, because an afternoon with a calm ten-year-old visiting the foster home is different evidence from living with toddlers. Ask how the meetings were set up and supervised, what the dog did when children were noisy, running, or playing with toys, and whether the dog chooses to stay near children or takes himself off to a quieter room — both can be perfectly good answers, but they suit different families. Ask about food and toys around children too: a dog who is relaxed with children generally but guards a chew needs a household that understands that distinction.
If the dog has not met children in foster care, ask what that means honestly. No evidence is not bad evidence, and a slow, managed introduction plan may suit you better than a dog described as child-proof on the strength of one garden meeting.
Cats: ask how the testing was actually done
Cat questions need the most unpacking of all. Ask whether the dog has lived in the same rooms as a cat, met one separated by a gate or glass, or only seen cats outdoors on walks, because those are three different levels of proof. Ask what the dog's body did on seeing the cat: a glance and a look away, a fixed stare, lunging, whining, or immediate chasing when the cat moved. Movement is the trigger that matters, so ask specifically about the cat running. Ask, too, whether the foster home's cat is dog-savvy and confident, since a dog who respects a cat that stands its ground may behave very differently with a cat that bolts.
A straight answer that the dog is untested with cats is useful information, and it should change your introduction plan rather than end the conversation by itself.
Other dogs: ask about play, space, and friction points
Ask which dogs the foster dog has lived and played with — their size, age, and energy — and what play looks like: wrestling, chasing, parallel sniffing, or polite indifference. Ask how the dog shares space, beds, and doorways, whether food or high-value chews have ever caused tension, and how the dog behaves meeting unfamiliar dogs on a lead, since lead reactivity and off-lead manners are often different skills. Ask whether the foster carer has ever had to step in, separate the dogs, or change a routine because of friction, and what they learned from it.
Ask about time itself
Finish with duration and change. How long has the dog been in this foster home, and how does the dog behave now compared with the first three days? Many rescue dogs show a guarded, unusually quiet version of themselves at first and relax into their real habits over weeks, so the foster's account of that arc is the best prediction of your own first month. Ask what the dog is still improving at and what the fosterer would do differently with the next dog, because that answer is usually the most candid of the whole conversation.
Write the answers down the same day, in the foster carer's own level of detail, and let everyone who will live with the dog read them before the adoption is agreed. KinsLe helps with exactly that through Family Sharing, where the foster notes sit on the dog's profile for the whole household to work from.