The Chestfield centre helped 408 dogs find homes last year and wants foster homes for dogs who struggle in kennels. Dogs Trust covers food, bedding and vet bills.
Dogs Trust is looking for volunteer foster carers around its Canterbury rehoming centre at Chestfield, and it is offering to pay for everything the dog needs while it is in your house. The charity has an open volunteer foster carer vacancy listed for Chestfield in Kent, asking people to “provide temporary foster care to a dog in need of a little support”.
The centre, on Radfall Road, helped 408 dogs find homes in 2025 and can house up to 70 dogs at a time. Fostering exists for the dogs that arrangement does not suit: the ones who find a kennel block overwhelming, however good the kennels are.
What the charity actually pays for
This is the part most people get wrong about fostering. You are not taking on the cost of a dog. Dogs Trust says it will “cover all essential costs and provide everything you need to care for a foster dog”, and that it covers “any vet costs for treatment your foster dog needs while they’re in your care”. The charity also runs an emergency out-of-hours number that foster carers can call at any time, and says it will share its training expertise to help carers understand the dog’s behaviour.
The commitment is short. Dogs Trust describes rehoming centre foster placements as lasting anywhere from a few days to several weeks, until the dog is matched with a permanent home.
Who can do it
The published conditions are short and worth checking before you apply. You must be 18 or over. You need either your own garden or regular access to an outside space. And the centre cannot place a foster dog in a home that has cats, so a cat in the house rules you out for this particular role.
Applications go through Dogs Trust’s online fostering application form, linked from the vacancy page. The charity’s general number is 0303 003 0000.
You can look round the place first
If handing your spare room to a strange dog sounds like a lot on trust, the centre now runs free behind the scenes tours, which it calls “barkstage” tours. They run fortnightly, they are open to anyone aged eight and over, and they take in the kennels, the outdoor compounds and what the centre calls the quieter spaces. Visitors meet some of the dogs currently in care, hear their stories and talk to the staff who look after them. Places are booked by contacting the centre on 01227 791404.
The centre itself is not the one longtime residents will remember. It opened in 2000 and has since been through a refurbishment that took 18 months, adding a new intake block, a veterinary suite with surgical facilities, a training area, extra office and staff space and new landscaping.
What it means for you
If you have wanted a dog but not the fifteen year commitment or the bills, this is the version of that with the costs removed and the timescale measured in weeks. The practical gates are the garden, the no-cats rule and being 18 or over.
If you are not in a position to foster, the tours are a genuinely free thing to do in the district over the summer, and they are open to children from eight. The centre is open to visitors on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 12pm to 4pm, with Wednesday and Friday mornings by pre-arranged appointment only, so do not turn up on a Wednesday afternoon expecting to get in. The full address is Radfall Road, Chestfield, Kent CT5 3ER.
More free and low cost days out across the district are in our checked list of things to do in Canterbury, Whitstable and Herne Bay.
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