PetFinder

First, I have filled out an application so many times I can't count. Applications just keep getting dumped. People don't respond to inquiries. I haven't gotten one response. This is a time consuming effort and very much a waste of time when you get nothing back from prospective pups you are interested. I don't think the lists are updated much at all. All this certainly a waste of time and effort.

I had been dealing with Four Feet and a Heart Beat out of Lacombe AB for about a week and a half, June 2022. I was going to adopt a sweet pup from them. I finally got the response and a date to go and meet him, but when I asked about the adoption fee (which isn't posted any where) they said I had signed the Pre-adoption consultation application which states what the fees are about. I said I understand that and I was just asking for a fee breakdown. To which they said to me that I am no longer considered a good fit for their agency and cancelled my meet and possible adopt date. I asked them to reconsider, in several emails, which they ghosted. I was willing to pay the $675 they quoted me, no issues, but they did not respond to me and then said that I am not welcome and to not send them any more messages.

I have since read some reviews I have found online and they, for one, seem like they are a puppy mill type facility that retires the older, no longer needed dogs. Almost all of their dogs seem to be male and they all seem to be designer dogs. The facility doesn't look nice in their pictures, the dogs look unkept and uncared for. I'm not even sure these dogs have seen a vet for any type of treatment. One reviewer even said they went to look at the dog they were inquiring about and they turned around and left. Upon further research, I have found that this particular "rescue" has changed their name 2 or 3 times, with the same address. I am sure it is because they have had bad reviews. I have even contacted the other shelters and rescues in the area and they have not heard anything good about them. A foundation with the same name out of Calgary AB, even has a pinned post at the top of their Facebook page that states they have nothing to do with the Four Feet and a Heart Beat rescue/shelter in Lacombe AB, they are based out of Calgary.

I fear the dogs at Four Feet and a Heart Beat in Lacombe AB are not cared for. I feel that they are all about the money and don't care about the animals. I know, it sounds strange when I am willing to pay what they are asking, however, once you ask questions, you suddenly become unacceptable for their rescue.

Please be weary of Four Feet and a Heart Beat at Lacombe Alberta.

I lost my baby two months ago exactly, and it has been super hard on me. I didn't know it until she passed how much I relied on her for emotional support sometimes from the issues I have. That being said I want to adopt a new dog soon so I have been going to local shelters and looking on Petfinder.

Pros

It helps show you all the available dogs (and cats, etc.) near you
Easy to navigate and filter to what you are looking for
Gives backgrounds on the animals
Explains if the animals would be good around other animals/children

Cons

It is almost impossible to meet every single criteria they want
If you do make the criteria, the dog is probably already adopted, in the process, or on hold.
Some of them seem like scams - as I have seen the same dog photo on a few different listings with the same name
The range is small on a lot of them which is difficult when you live in the middle of nowhere.

The website is simple to use, however it takes a very long time for anyone to get connected with you. I have been trying for a while now to adopt a cat and every single cat I've tried to adopt so far has been adopted before I even get the chance because nobody gets back to me in time. There's really no point in trying to adopt online, especially with this website. You're better off physically going to an adoption place.

PetFinder obviously does not monitor the organizations that post on their website. East Dallas Pet Rescue is not a reputable organization. The animals are not vet checked. They obviously don't know anything about how to determine a dog breed. They misrepresent the breed and age of the dogs. The dogs are not healthy when they are adopted out.

I don't blame the website but then again I do. They need to work better at the credibility of their users. No one gets back to you and it's extremely difficult to adopt from this website. Also some shelter locations are wrong or missing. They claim to want adoptions but in reality probably have foster parents ignoring inquiries because they want to keep the pets for themselves. They don't respond to you when you show interest or even let you know they received it. Unprofessional people.

Home sweet home rescue in Mississauga is a horrible rescue organization. Dog adopted and died 3 months after. Dog was 2 years old and obviously they did not disclose health issues. Hansel was dog's name. We are still devastated and petfinder did not help stop them from rescuing more dogs and making money from more unsuspecting vulnerable adopters.

Petfinder isn't a shelter themselves. They're sort of a catch-all for many shelters. They don't seem to require these shelters to meet any sort of customer standards. More often than not, the shelter hosting the animal you want will require you to go to their site and fill out a lengthy application. Some of these are more in depth than filing taxes; some are quite basic. And some require a "donation" to apply. 9 out of 10 times, an application filed the day the animal shows up on Petfinder is a waste of time because the shelter has already found a home for it by then. The hope being that you'll find something else on their site now that you've been lured in with the cute photo of the one that wasn't available. Nevertheless, the listing lingers on Petfinder; I guess until the shelter finds a new photo to fill that listing slot. You will likely never hear from the shelter again once you apply.

They're good if you want links to lots of shelters, but don't believe that the animal advertised with Petfinder is actually available. It's just bait.

I found the database with the dogs useful but very disappointing. After looking on potential dogs to adopt, the following are my observations:

A different application has to be filled out depending on rescue organization.

We were interested in puppy and or younger dog. We were told on many of the puppies an older dog was required and no adoptions if children under 5 in home.
1) we are retired, the expense and care for two dogs isn't practical both financially and living in our home. I usually take my dog everywhere and two dogs becomes a challenge to manage. I would imagine there are younger families who would also find this difficult to accomplish especially financially.
2) getting thru to a human is another issue. I assume most of this is volunteer and their time is limited. I would find a dog I was interested in but they told me foster parents had to approve the visit. I never did hear on the older dog we were interested in. I found this morning the dog was removed from the site and assumed to be adopted.

We hadn't planned on going to a breeder but I'm not interested in trying to get a dog from this site any longer.

Improvements. One form to fill out for all. I think looking thru the applications most want the same info.

Rules on puppies and foster visitors needs to be revisited.

What is the point of asking for a city, zip code, and maximum distance from home to search when all of their animals are 'being fostered' in Texas or China? Many ads even state that animals will not be shipped to your state until 'pre-adopted'. Who adopts a dog without even getting to be in the same state with it first? ($695 transport fee) It's a sadly impersonal and disingenuous way to import dogs from Taiwan, based on nothing more than a photo.

The site shows animals that are not matched based on your criteria, and shows animals that are out of date.

Don't waste your time. I literally applied or inquired about 60 dogs and not one of the shelters or contacts EVER replied to me. They sent me "available" dogs and I went to the site the second I got the email only to see that the dog wasn't available.

I'm just 67, and nobody will let me adopt a dog. So I'm going to go buy one from a breeder.
So much for doing the right thing.

I have inquired about dogs on this sight several times and never heard back from anyone other than somebody in Texas. It's a bit confusing to understand where these dogs actually are being fostered. I want to meet a dog before I adopt. I did get wise finally and just looked on the drop-down list of rescue organizations and shelters in my area and started looking there, but even then I still have gotten very few responses. These rescue animals need loving homes, so I don't understand the lack of responses. I would not recommend just browsing on Petfinder, if anything find your local rescue groups and go that route.

I have been trying to adopt a kitten to no avail. I am glad to see that the process is a stringent one but unfortunately, I believe it is a process that is based on personal feelings. I was led to believe that I was the lucky one to adopt Miny... heard nothing after being told "I'll get the paper work done". That was days ago. Seems everyone is told this. While waiting so long I could have filled out paperwork for another kitty. I am very disappointed - I thought Petfinder was better than this.

Read all the reviews... they are true. I didn't believe them at first but unfortunately they are true.

What a shame, the kitty I wanted to adopt would have had a home filled with much love and Iaughter and would have had the best of everything. I am so sorry Miny, we wanted you so badly.

I know there are lots of dogs that need good homes. You hear about all it the time. I have contacted pet finders web site several times to adopt a dog. They don't want u too adopt these dogs. They act like no one is good enough. So keep ur dogs. I will find a dog that really needs a good loving home. But It will not be thru pet finders, because I will not contact them again.

On petfinder you cannot:
Search by key words in descriptions like "mellow" or "fluffy"
Exclude a breed or breeds from a search
Sort the results by oldest or newest listings
Exclude or include listings that specify things like "must own a house with yard"
Exclude or include listings where the dog is being transported hundreds of miles

There are two main issues--one, the data collected from the shelters is pretty spotty. Some shelters enter descriptions that are, well, descriptive. Other shelters copy and paste the same thing every time. Although petfinder attempts to offer a filter for "kids in home", shelters provide poor data so that you will still get tons of results for "cannot have kids". This is not entirely the developers' fault, though they could validate and enforce some aspects of the data coming in.
The other problem is just that there really is not much development gone into this site. Why not have the descriptions indexed for searching by key phrases? Why not put a posted date on each listing?
This site could be amazing and much more helpful to animals if it had more work put in. I don't know if it's a funding thing or what.

Petfinder is an inexpensive way some reputable shelters use to get animals adopted. That said, I wouldn't recommend using Petfinder to contact the shelter or to apply unless you don't want to be seriously considered. I can see the shelter's point of view - on the internet, no one knows if you are a dog. If you serious about adopting, then go to the shelter when they are open and talk to the volunteers, meet the animal, and if you are match then you'll have a new addition to your home. For all you know, there will be a better fit for your family at the shelter that was NOT on petfinder. That's what it's all about - family.

I have been looking for a small, young or baby dog for over a year. Several puppies caught my eye and after filling out many applications, I either got no response or one organization requested pictures of my house and my 2 deceased Springer Spanials, who died at 15 and 16 years old. I would think they would be most interested in my vet referral. Ultimately I purchased a beautiful toy poodle from a private breeder listed on the AKC site. When I brought her to my vet for her first appointment my vet said my new puppy has no idea how lucky she is to have landed with me. Too bad these organizations were not interested in my vet referral.

The site is woefully dysfunctional. Search settings are routinely lost, mid-search, so that all of the settings have to be reentered. So-called saved searches aren't immune from this problem either. The dropdown menus get stuck with regularity, so that only the top option displays for checking off. The message "Sorry, no pets available within specified distance" displays for no reason, extremely often. Pets that have already been adopted continue to be listed for many weeks. (I realize this may be more the fault of the individual shelters than petfinder; still, it renders the information much less useful than it should be.) The distance parameters make no sense; why jump from "within 100 miles" to "within 500 miles"? What about 200,300, or 400 miles? In other words, one has to choose between shelters within a couple of hours' drive vs. ones that would take a day or more to reach! I've e-mailed petfinder about the problems I've encountered repeatedly. Replies have ranged from "You don't *have* to use petfinder" (really?) to claims that the problems are "infrequent" even though they are nearly constant. It seems reasonable to wonder whether tech support with more expertise might be able to improve this very user-unfriendly site, which is nevertheless performing an important service and therefore should be MUCH, MUCH better.

I spent hours and hours looking for a dog on Petfinder.com. Even after narrowing the search down, there were over 1500 dogs to choose from. So the website could be changed so that you could narrow the searches even further. And if that happened, maybe the site would not crash as much. Two weeks ago, I found a dog that was a good match. So far, the rescue group hasn't even checked my references. I have filled out several applications, but I have not even met one of the rescue/foster dogs yet. I think maybe there should be only one application to be filled out that gets the Petfinder "Seal of Approval." Then you should be able to adopt from any group that advertises on the site. Lastly, I think that we should be able to give feedback concerning the individual rescue groups we deal with. At this point, I would give all the rescue groups I have dealt with a negative rating. The local shelters have been great to work with, but the small rescue groups have been all but impossible to work with.

My family recently decided to adopt a dog from petfinder. After weeks of research we found a dog, bought all the necessary supplies and set up a home inspection. Two woman, one who was fostering the dog and another who was higher up in the organization dropped the dog off, approved him to live with us, signed all paperwork and took a check for payment. Not even two hours later after buying a crate and name tag the women were back at our door askin for the dog back. At first they claimed it was "for the safety of our smaller dogs" but soon admitted the foster mother could not give the dog up. We asked that they give us a week with the dog to reconsider our emotions but would not budge. I am simply writing this review to advise anyone who is adopting a dog to look at the history of the foster family. Chances are if this is their first foster they may not be able to part. Only good thing to come out of this is that the woman who fostered the dog will no longer be allowed to foster animals. Be careful before you fall in love!

Petfinder needs to screen or more thoroughly screen the organizations that are placing "adoptable" pets on their site.
I know some people who have had very positive experiences -I know others (including myself) that have not.
Petfinder is just the host... be sure to do research and read reviews on the organization that you will actually be dealing with!
I just went through a horrible time with NEW ENGLAND ALL BREED RESCUE and ALPHA TRANSPORT of CT, MA and RI. Their ads are misleading and they lie about whatever they think will make the dog look more attractive to the adoptee. They are adopting out sick dogs! Once you have the dog and they have your $$$ it's too late... they are done with you. Trust me and do a ton of research if you are even thinking of doing business with these people. If you are able to try and contact the people who have written the bad reviews and ask them why they had such a bad experience. Remember the "good" reviews could have been written by the organization themselves.