With a few clicks of the mouse, you can meet your four-legged match.
Whatever animal makes you happy, you can find it on PetFinder.com, a national pet adoption Web site that a number of local organizations are turning to for help in finding their furry friends homes.
Kim Saunders, vice president of public affairs for PetFinder, said the Web site, which was founded in 1996 by Jared and Betsy Saul, is constantly adding more pets to its searchable database.
On Thursday, Nov. 19, Saunders said the site had 321,521 adoptable pets.
“We update the site in real time,” she said. “That number is constantly changing.”
When a person logs on to the site, they are able to choose which type of pet they would like, what gender they would like their pet to be, what breed, age and size they would like and their location so that PetFinder can locate the closest adoption agencies to the applicant.
The benefits to adopting a pet that is close to where you live, Saunders said, is that the pet has less distance to travel. Some adoption agencies require a fee for the transportation of the pet to get to its new owner and others require the owner to pick up the pet in person.
“It really depends on the groups. Some of our groups will adopt to long distances, some groups will require the person to come and get the pet, or there’s a lot of these sort of canine underground railroads where pets get transported to someplace by a series of cars and volunteers,” Saunders said.
This means the more local organizations that sign on to PetFinders, the easier it is to get the new addition to your family to you.
There are about nine organizations in Albany alone connected with the site, and others in Delmar, Scotia, Rotterdam, Saratoga and Menands.
Judie Jancio, founder of Kitten Angels, out of Delmar, said her organization, which fosters kittens out of the L.C. Smith Pet Center on Delaware Avenue, has been able to adopt out kittens to several states through the help of PetFinder.
“I just adopted out to Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts – everywhere. It’s a wonderful way to get the kittens adopted,” she said. “PetFinder has helped us tremendously by getting the word out of what we do.”
Kitten Angels is very selective about who can adopt kittens, Jancio said, and after a user finds the Kitten Angel kittens on PetFinder, they must also complete an application on Kitten Angels’ Web site. The kittens adopted out by Kitten Angels are under 3 months old, she said.
“They have to be able to care for the kitten,” she said. “I am not going to let them go somewhere they will need to be rescued [from.]”
At The Happy Dog Pet Hotel, in Rotterdam, a boarding facility that also adopts out pets, Owner Kim Kranick said that PetFinder helps the establishment reach more potential pet owners than are just in the immediate area.
“It gets the pets out there and in another area other than just the Schenectady area,” she said.
The Happy Dog Pet Hotel takes in many strays from the Rotterdam area, Kranick said.
“We keep them for a couple weeks, and if no one claims them, we adopt them out,” she said.
Through use of PetFinder, Kranick said the establishment was able to find homes in Massachusetts and Vermont for their pets.
PetFinder also helps bigger organizations faced with overpopulation after taking in so many strays.
The Mohawk & Hudson River Humane Society in Menands uploads photos of all available pets to PetFinder, according to Executive Director Brad Shear.
“My understanding is that it’s one of the most often visited sites on the Internet, so we attract people that maybe wouldn’t find us ordinarily,” he said.
Through the site, Shear said, the shelter has been able to adopt to many places that are far, but within driving distance for owners, such as Lake Placid.
While an Internet adoption site such as PetFinder may not have the same bark as a local adoption agency where a person can visit the pet, it has the bite local adoption organizations are looking for when it comes to getting their pets adopted.
The Web site can be found at www.petfinder.com.
