Pet Finder is one of the world’s largest websites dealing with the adoption of unwanted pets. It is essentially a database of animals housed in shelters and pet kennels.
Pet Finder is found at Petfinder.org or Petfinder.com and was the brainchild of Jared and Betsy Saul in 1996. Surprisingly, the couple hadn’t been active in the world of pet adoption before, but decided as a New Year’s resolution during Christmas 1995. that they should use their Internet and computer skills to do something good. So a computer program was written and animal shelters contacted, and Pet Finder started from Saul’s home in Pittstown, New Jersey.
Within twelve months, the Pet Finder website was receiving a thousand hits every day, and soon almost every shelter and home in New Jersey had joined the site as a member. So, in 1998, the website expanded to include shelters across the United States, and while Jared stayed on at his radiology job, Betsy resigned as City Ranger to run the company full-time.
So now, in its twelfth year, Pet Finder has gone on to list over two hundred thousand available pets every day. The website lists information on ten thousand animal shelters and kennels, most of which are in North America, the United States, and Canada, but there is also information on pets housed in other parts of the world.
As the website is paid for by sponsors including pet food companies and private donations, the site is free to join and search, although it is now owned by the Discovery Television Company. Through the website, viewers can locate many small animals, including birds, cats, dogs, and rabbits, all available for adoption. Potential owners can search the database by animal type, breed, sex, size and age, with results displayed by closest neighborhood.
There have been a large number of successful adoptions triggered by the website, an estimated ten million over twelve years. Many of the kennels and shelters report that Pet Finder has doubled the number of people looking to adopt. Each shelter that is a member of the site has its own page within the site, and its staff keeps the list of pets up to date.
Pet Finder has ensured that many more pets have found new homes and fewer pets have had to be euthanized as a result. With new owners, it looks like pet adoption will be a lot easier for years to come.