As you may know, I’m a big fan of Petfinder.com. You can see references in this blog here. here,
Roxie: Discovered at Petfinder.com
here, and here. I adopted my beloved Roxie through Petfinder.com. And on most pages of this blog you can see an ever changing array of sweet photographs of adoptable dogs and cats in Massachusetts that are in the Petfinder database.
Petfinder’s database contains thousands upon thousands of adoptable pets of every variety. The database is organized by geographical region, type of animal, size, age, gender, and a couple of other variables. Hundreds of different shelters and rescue groups include their adoptable animals in Petfinder’s database.
This is how Petfinder works: Let’s say you live in Eastern Massachusetts and you’re looking for a dog (I hope you will consider adopting a dog who needs a home, rather than going to a breeder). You’d like to not travel too far. You want a neutered male who’s young and large in size and is currently homed in E. Massachusetts. You go to Petfinder.com and enter these choices, and Voila!, a bunch of photographs of wonderful smiling dogs looking for forever homes comes up. You can click on those who appeal to you and learn more about each one so you can make an informed decision. Then you settle on a couple of choices and inquire at the shelter or foster home where the dog is currently living.
Here’s what I did when I was looking for Roxie. I sorted the database for a medium female under age two. And up came Roxie (whose name was Rascal in those days). Turns out she was being fostered by a couple who live in Framingham, just one town over from me. So Pasha (my Greyhound at the time) and I trotted over to visit Rascal to see if Pasha (and I) approved. We liked what we saw, and made arrangements to adopt her. The rest is, as they say, history.
In today’s email, I received an announcement from the director of Petfinder.com foundation. In it she reported on the good works that Petfinder has been able to do with the help of generous people out there.
Here’s what Liz Neuschatz said:
“Thanks to you, we were able to provide over $4 million in grants in 2010 to shelters and rescue groups. This was accomplished with more than 90% of your donated dollar going directly toward programs. Looking back on the year, we are proud to have helped during times of crisis – the Haiti earthquake and the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and throughout the year to provide vaccinations and care to homeless pets all across North America.”
Please consider giving to this fine organization. And next time you’re looking to increase your animal family, think about adopting.
