Article text:

HOUSTON – For many families ready to adopt a dog or cat, the search starts on Petfinder, an online platform that lists adoptable pets from shelters and rescues nationwide. But several Houston-area rescue groups say a recent change to Petfinder’s search filters is making their animals harder to find and is already cutting into adoptions.

Suzanne Schaefer, director of administration for Three Little Pitties Rescue, said her organization previously depended on out-of-town visibility to connect animals with adopters in other markets.

“Previously, we were able to show out-of-town pets in our 32 markets across the United States. They took that ability out and now our pets are not showing up,” Schaefer said.

Schaefer said Petfinder still allows users to include transport-ready animals, but the option is easy to miss.

“Now, there is a box at the bottom that people can check to say I want to see out of town pets, but people don’t know to do that,” she said.

Schaefer said the result has been a steep drop in adoption interest.

“Our adoptions have trickled from 35 to 40 applications a day down to five applications a day. We have about 950 animals in our program and really no place to send them right now,” she said.

Schaefer said that slowdown is forcing difficult operational decisions, including pausing community outreach that provided free spay-neuter services and vaccines for owned animals in underserved areas. She also said the rescue has had to stop taking in additional animals.

“We have had to close intake, which means we are not taking animals from our street rescuers, nor are we able to take animals in from shelters,” Schaefer said. Other Houston-area rescues say they are seeing similar impacts.

Angelique Strickler, founder of Waiting Under the Willow Foundation, said: “Recent changes to Petfinder have had a devastating impact on rescue groups and shelters, leading to a significant decrease in adoptions. This ripple effect is resulting in more dogs dying on euthanasia lists and on the streets as rescues are forced to close intake.”

Tammy Livingston with Belle’s Buds Rescue said: “I think we definitely are missing out on people looking to adopt… and it’s a shame… especially out of state adopters.”

In response, Petfinder said the change was driven by user feedback and that out-of-town pets can still be included by selecting a checkbox in the filters.

Petfinder’s statement from Petfinder: “We strive to provide the best user experience on Petfinder by regularly reviewing feedback from adopters and shelter and rescue partners. One of the top user complaints we received over the past year was that local searches included out-of-town pets by default, which confused potential pet adopters seeking nearby adoptions. Based on this feedback, we recently updated the site so only local pets appear in searches initially, while still allowing users to include out-of-town pets at any time by selecting a simple checkbox to ‘Include out-of-town pets that can be transported to your area’ in the search filters.”

Sunnyside Street Dogs said the update has been especially disruptive for groups that place most animals out of state through transport adoptions. The organization said:

“Here at Sunnyside Street Dogs, most of the dogs that we have are adopted out of state. We rely on Petfinder to get these dogs into their furever homes across the United States so that they have a better chance of getting adopted. When Petfinder did the update it caused several problems, but one if the biggest problems is that people that are out of state cannot see the adoptable dogs that are available for transport to their state unless they check a box that says ‘Include out-of-town pets that can be transported to your area.’ This problem, along with many others, has halted not only our adoptions, but all rescues that rely on Petfinder to adopt out their dogs. We have called, emailed, sent online request, and no one is reaching out to us. This is devastating to our rescue because without dogs being adopted, we have to close our intake and can’t help the many other dogs that are out on the streets that still need our help. Our adoptions went from 5 to 15 per week down to 1 or two per week, and with all of the rescues having the same problem there are hundreds of dogs every week that are not being adopted.”

Some local shelters said the change is not affecting how they complete adoptions. Harris County Pets said: “Harris County Pets is aware of recent changes to search features on Petfinder. At this time, these updates do not significantly impact our adoption process. Harris County Pets requires all potential adopters to visit the animal in person at the Harris County Pets Resource Center before completing an adoption. Because in-person visits are required, our adoption operations are not dependent on out-of-town search functionality. We encourage community members to continue visiting our shelter or viewing adoptable animals on our website, countypets.com , to learn more about adoptable pets currently in our care.”

BARC also said the change is not impacting its shelter.

Rescues that rely heavily on transport adoptions say the checkbox may be simple, but they believe many adopters never reach it, and they say the drop in visibility is already translating into fewer applications and fewer animals getting out of the system.

Nobody wants your stupid pitbulls, lady. That's why you probably have them listed as Whippets on Petfinder.

There should be a "no pitbull " filter on Petfinder. Or they should rename it Pitfinder.

I’m torn, because sometimes exotics like rabbits need extra help finding homes outside the immediate area. I think this will hurt any type of pets that aren’t cats/dogs. But yeah, no one wants this lady’s pitbulls, that’s besides the point. Shipping Maula across the county so it can attack people and pets three states away.

Pibble Line of Terror: 1. Write an amazing, BS love letter. Make sure to mention deep, soulful, lost everything, owners failed him. If you can't hide a bite, blame child or cat. Use "mouthing" or "nipped" only. Pibble never holds on but releases cause powerful jaws are a lie from Hell. Pibble never "breaks the skin."

1. Rename with a heartfelt cute name. Bluey is a nice choice.

2. Add costumes! Give pibble plenty of treats and let the intact male hump you. Remember, it's never sexual. 

3. Use Cheeze Whiz trails and Clonide/Trazadone to bribe Pibble to go outside in the shelter. Redirect with constant toys and treats.

4. Always put soft, sad music in Tik Tok Videos to hide demonic barking and howling.

5. Lie and make it seem like Pibble is getting killed tomorrow. Use "kill command" to scsre others into action.

6. Rescues, remember to charge 2k to eventual owners. You paid $50, but you work hard.

7. Don't care if the new owners have babies or pets, we need to save Yeasg Beast.

8. Refuse to take shittbull back.  Dox any owner that BEs or forces shitty back.

9. Pro Tip! Say they are a stray to omit pesky histories and allow an easy name change.

10. Only Shitty and a couple GSD matter, who cares about other breeds!

11. Inform people how to lie and force Shitbull to be accepted by landlord. Photo Shop and making a service dog are amazing choices.

12. Cry Racism if anyone doesn't adore Shitty.

Dogs (99% pits) from Three little pitties have recently flooded my Petfinder. It'll be a good adjustment overall. Also, TLP asks $1000+ for dogs. Insane.

EDIT: Oh shit, I just realized why I recently got a flood of Three Little Pitties dogs. They've duplicated all their dog profiles multiple times with the location changed for each new profile. So they have 3-4 profiles for 1 dog now to get around the "out-of-town" issue. Fuck these rescues bro.

There is stupid amount of money put into transporting dogs. It's always money coming from the pockets from well meaning people (or from the rabid rescue fans). I recently saw a place trying to raise $400 to transport a single dog from multiple states away to my area. I hope this update sticks because fuck these people.

So, if you're running a responsible, ethical rescue, why wouldn't you require an in-person meet & greet with the adopter and the critter to ensure that there's a good fit between them? Wouldn't this policy change ensure that issues like the Bistro fiasco are less likely?

https://www.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/comments/1oxkeux/rescue_furious_that_an_adopter_had_their_pit_bed/

GOOD. I'm sick and tired of Texas shipping its pit bull problem to other states.

Since when is Texas so wimpy? You know what to do, Texas. You're the goddamn capital of pit maulings.

I find it rather telling that these rescues refer to these out of town areas as 'markets'. It's more about moving product (dogs) and making money (fees and donations) than it is about finding quality homes for animals.

Spay/neuter, you'all. And bring back dog catchers if you have the equivalent of Jurassic Park canine predators roaming the whole state.

I have to laugh because - according to the rescue - not only are the dogs victims because they're not being adopted but now the rescue is a victim because they can't sucker advertise Maulie to out-of-town folks as easily. What a terrible thing it must be for them to see their whole world from the point of being a victim.

Except when it comes to actual victims of bloodsport dogs. Then, no, there is no "victim."

ETA - I just saw in another comment on this post where this rescue has made 20 or so profiles - each in a different city - for each of their dogs. Honestly, I think this rescue should be banned from posting on Petfinder. I'm reporting them.

It should be a fineable offense to mislabel a dog unless you can prove in a court of law that the dog contains 25% or more of genetic material from that breed. Hit the rescues and shelters which mislabel dogs.

Also the veterinary offices that will lie and call an obvious pitbull a lab mix.

That should cut down on the number of fake mixes.

Oh no! "Three Little Pitties Rescue" won't be able to unload their murder mutts onto unsuspecting families!

Sunnyside Street Dogs is a rescue quoted in this article. And guess what! This subreddit featured them about three weeks ago! https://www.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/comments/1p7knym/shelter_guilt_tripping_adopter_on_facebook/

Some of these transports get arranged by people online while never even met these dogs. Fucking no.

They rescue pitbulls and cats.

Unfortunately they’ve already started finding a way around this by making multiple listings for the same dog but changing the location on each one.

I’m familiar with that rescue, the amount they charge for these dogs is insane and many of their adoptions are transports with adopters not meeting the dog until after they’ve already adopted it.

I wish petfinder had a checkbox to exclude a particular ahem breed. Btw, Dewey Duke is still featured going on 3 years now lol

Oops, I see someone else already commented something similar

In a sane world, there would be a full federal investigation into the animal shelter industry.

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