HoundsGood: Chronicles of a Virtual Volunteer

I am always excited to find other sites that promote how important it is to adopt a pet, rather than purchase one. A friend of mine said that “as long as someone loves them” it doesn’t matter if a pet was purchased or adopted. That may be true, but only to a certain extent. When a breeder has a litter available, there may be four to eight dogs in shelters who don’t have a chance for a family because someone bought a puppy instead.

Petango is a brand new site where you can search for dogs and cats that are at shelters right now. Some of them are shelters where dogs and cats only get a few days before being euthanized, and some are rescue groups that rescue and rehabilitate dogs and cats from shelters. I don’t see many of the shelters that I regularly post for or volunteer for, but it just means that they have to sign up. The interface is a bit more friendly to those who are used to using Facebook and Twitter.

While I tend to look at dogs first, as I am owned by two myself, I have to emphasize that when you go to Petango.com - Adopt a cat!. While there may be some areas that have a larger population of homeless dogs than others, and some have widespread spay programs, the story for cats is the same everywhere.  At left is Buddy. He is part of a 3 year old brother/sister pair at the Windsor-Essex Humane Society in Ontario. Their owner could not care for them anymore. If you are in Ontario and are looking for a pair of cats who get along famously, you won’t only be changing the world for these two cats, but you will save two lives as a bonus. There will be two other lucky cats who will be able to have more time at the shelter to find a home.

The site is funded by PetHealth, the providers of 24PetWatch, so there are enough financial resources to keep the site operational. There have been so many sites that have only lasted a short time due to funding, so it is a good sign that it will be around if it catches on.  I only have a few criticisms, which hopefully are constructive.  Firstly, I would like to see more information on each pet.  This is not the site’s fault.   It really helps an potential adopter, especially if they have not considered a shelter dog before, to have a little more information than gender and breed.  There is a memo area that no one seems to fill out.  Even the slightest bit of information will help someone connect with a pet and want to save them, or give them clues about suitability for their family so that a permanent match is made.  Of course, if a pet is at a county pound not much can be known, but there must be something.

Secondly, there is no FAQ section to tell us how they screen participating rescues and shelters. Do they just include groups that have emailed them about being on the site, or are they using a feed from another adoption site?  I am just curious to know.

I am going to encourage some of my favorite rescue groups and shelters to contact Petango.com, so that their homeless pets may have one more potential place to attract their new family.

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