Petfinder Blog

Are you thinking about adopting a dog from a shelter or rescue group? Animal Planet's Underdog to Wonderdog is now casting adopters for its second season!

Here's the announcement we've been asked to share by the show's production company, Sharp Entertainment:

Sharp Entertainment is casting for the second season of the ambitious television series that pairs abandoned shelter dogs with loving and deserving families.

Guided by the expertise of our Wonder Team, these once-neglected and forgotten shelter dogs will be transformed and given a second chance at life by being placed in loving and caring homes.

Not only will the pooches undergo an amazing transformation - so will the families and their homes, with a special doggie makeover that ensures the home and family are ready to welcome their new canine member.

We're celebrating Adopt-a-Shelter-Cat Month by partnering with LOLcats site Icanhascheezburger.com to bring adoptable cats to a whole new audience.

If you check out any adoptable cat on Petfinder, you will see a button under his or her photo that says ADD TO ICANHASCHEEZBURGER.COM.

When you click, you have the chance to write a creative LOL-worthy caption. You know the pictures ... the ones that when you look at them, you can't help but put words in the cat's mouth?! Well, here's your chance.

Once you submit a captioned adoptable kitteh (that is LOL-speak for cat!), she will go into the gallery and Icanhascheezburger visitors will vote on their favorites.

The top vote-getters make it to the home page with a link back to the cat's Petfinder profile. It's fun -- and it will also, we hope, get more people to check out the adorable, adoptable cats on Petfinder.

We've been hearing from more and more of you who included your pets in your weddings, and of course we think this is wonderful. Pets are important members of the family, just like your brother, sister or even children.

Here are a few tips we've developed from speaking with people who have included their pet in their special day:

• When planning a ceremony and reception location, make sure they allow pets.
  
  
• Designate someone (not in the bridal party) to watch your pet for the day.
  
  
• Take photos with your dog before the wedding or on a different day.
  
  
• Know your pet before making the decision to include them in your wedding, because some pets may not handle large crowds and intense situations well.

I love my cat. My cat loves her (huge, carpeted, gray, well-scratched) cat tower. But I have to admit, I do not love the cat tower.

How to decorate a stylish home that's also fun and stimulating for cats is a perennial dilemma. Luckily, The Refined Feline has a solution in its assortment of high-end cat towers, litterbox cabinets, and cat beds.

And in honor of June, Adopt-a-Shelter-Cat Month, The Refined Feline is partnering with The Petfinder.com Foundation to help pets in need.

By clicking this link, 10% of purchases will donated to the Petfinder Foundation.

The Refined Feline is also helping our shelter and rescue-group members in two ways (if you are a Petfinder member, visit the admin page for more info):

1) One lucky Petfinder member will receive a cat-room makeover with Refined Feline cat furniture worth more than $1300. We'll share the before-and-after pictures here on the blog!

2) The Refined Feline is also offering members an affiliate program, in which groups can sign up to receive 10% on all orders placed through their Web site.

Happy Adopt-a-Shelter-Cat Month, everyone!

What if you got old and nobody wanted you? That's the question posed by Judith Flatley, who adopted eight-year-old Queenie, a Pekingese whose previous parent had a stroke and could no longer care for her. The woman turned her five dogs over to Adopt-Aluv Small Breed Rescue in Mentor, OH, before going into an assisted-living facility.

Judith had already adopted one dog from Adopt-Aluv through Petfinder, and when the five dogs arrived, the rescue person called Judith to see if she could take on another. "I hesitated," Judith says, "because our other adopted Peke was such an Alpha that I wasn't sure it would work out. Now I'm sorry I hesitated even long enough to discuss it with my husband. Queenie is the sweetest dog imaginable."

See Gizmo the Soldier Dog and other pups at work here.

June 26 is Take Your Dog to Work Day, and Petfinder is proud to be the 2009 official adoption partner of the event, which is organized by Pet Sitters International.

To find out how you can participate, including tips for success and how to win over your boss to the idea, visit TakeYourDog.com.

We asked Petfinder visitors if they bring their pets to work. Here are just a few of the responses:

My husband works for the US Army. And while he is not supposed to bring him to work by Army standards, he brings our youngest dog to work with him, and my husband's boss brings his cats to work!

I work at Archdale Animal Clinic in Archdale, NC. We have a very laid-back boss. Pretty much everyone that I work with brings their dog to work with them daily. It's like the dogs have a job too. They all run loose in the back and get along, except for the occasional grumble over treats. The clients know them all by name and love seeing them. Personally I don't know what it would be like to not have Riley with me at work. I have never been in another vet clinic like ours, but for us it works.--Byrd

Since I work at an animal shelter, YES! We are allowed to bring our pets to work. For us, having our pets around really reminds us why we do what we do. Most of us have former shelter dogs, so it reinforces that happy endings do happen! It's a great morale boost when you're dealing with so much sadness. Even if it's a co-worker's dog, feeling that paw on your leg or that wet nose on your arm brings us back to why we started working there in the first place.--Melissa Tata, Program Administrator, Animal Protective Foundation, Scotia, NY

Want to learn more about Petfinder and all the ways we help our shelter and rescue group members get their pets adopted? Check out our 2008 Annual Report.

Some highlights:

• Petfinder accounts for 65% of U.S. and Canadian adoptions.
• For about a quarter of our 12,500+ shelter/rescue group members, Petfinder is responsible for 80-100% of ALL their adoptions.
• Petfinder sends adoptable-pet listings to over 275 popular Web sites such as AOL, Petco.com, Walmart.com, Oodle and MySpace, reaching millions of potential adopters every year.
• Petfinder Mobile takes adoptable pets on the road - via cell phones, BlackBerrys and iPhones.
• The Petfinder.com Foundation awarded more than $1,000,000 in cash and products to our members in disaster-relief grants and power-generator awards.
• Petfinder pets data will power the adoptable-pet search on the web site for the Ad Council's first-ever animal welfare-oriented campaign in partnership with the Humane Society of the United States and Maddie's Fund.

Download the PDF of the report here and let us know what you think!

I want to thank everyone for their comments and guesses as to the breed of my dog, Alan.

Many of you were on the right track: According the the Canine Heritage breed identification, there were no clear primary breeds (neither parent was a purebred) but they did identify Greyhound as a secondary breed.

Now here's a head scratcher -- the only other breed they identified "in the mix" was English Coonhound!

Clearly he is a true mutt, and it goes to show what gorgeous and fantastic pets mixed breeds are. I tend to agree with some of of you who considered Great Dane, Rottweiler and/or Doberman in there somewhere.

I particularly like the idea of him being a "Great Bordobie" as someone suggested ("the ears of a border collie, body of a dobie and his head just screams great dane"). Perhaps more like a Great Greyeiler? I'm not sure about the rest ... but he is definitely great!

 
How much do I loooove this TODAY Show segment featuring makeovers of adoptable dogs from New York City's Animal Care & Control? It features Martha Stewart walking a pit bull -- when did you ever think you'd see that?

It's also a great plug for pit bulls, senior pets and shelter dogs in general. And major props to TODAY's Jill Rappaport, who shows off her handsome (and so well-behaved) rescued pit, Petey. Read more about the segment here.

While some of the 12,500+ shelters and rescue groups that list their adoptable pets with us will only adopt locally, not all of them have that policy, and we often get Happy Tails from people who traveled huge distances to adopt the perfect pet they found on Petfinder.

But this story about British couple Rose and Chris Rasmussen takes the cake. The pair spotted Sparky on Petfinder and fell in love, despite the fact that they live in suburban London and Sparky was at the Clare County Animal Shelter in Harrison, Michigan.

(Read the full story at Central Michigan's TheMorningSun.com.)

With help from Clare County Animal Control Director Dave Gendregske, who completed piles of paperwork and made
sure Sparky was microchipped, vaccinated, quarantined and vetted, the Rasmussens were finally able to travel to Harrison to collect their new family member.