Pet Adoption Resources

Dog Adoptions at Best Friends (.pdf)
Cat Adoptions at Best Friends (.pdf)
These two publications can help you develop adoption procedures for your organization. They explain Best Friends' adoption procedures step by step and contain samples of forms used by Best Friends staff in the adoption process.

How to Find Homes for Homeless Pets (.pdf)
How to find a home for a pet who needs a new home or for an animal that you have rescued. This basic guide walks you through it step by step. Click for Spanish.

Make-A-Flyer (New!) This program makes it easy to create printable posters to help you advertise lost or adoptable pets.

Adoption Option Brochure (.pdf)
This brochure for prospective adopters talks about why you should adopt, where you can adopt, and what else you need to know. Spanish Version (.pdf)

Big Dogs, Shy Cats: How to Find Homes for "Hard to Place" Pets (.pdf)
This 10-page guide by Nathan Winograd of Tompkins County SPCA shows you how to get the job done when adopting the old, the ugly, the ornery and the shy pets.

Secrets of the Adoptions Master (.pdf)
Everything you need to know about how to get animals out of shelters and into great new homes. An interview with Mike Arms of Helen Woodward Animal Center.

How to Write Pet Profiles to Find Good Homes for Your Adoptables (.pdf)
Elizabeth Doyle, staff writer for Best Friends, gives tips for writing winning descriptions of your adoptable pets.

It Takes A Community: Starting a Foster Community (.pdf)
This 10-page guide by Nathan Winograd of Tompkins County SPCA walks you through the in's and out's of developing your own foster care program.

Saving Dogs in Shelters (.pdf)
This 5-page guide by Nathan Winograd of Tompkins County SPCA explains how the shelter environment itself can be critical to making your dogs more adoptable.

Taking the Animals to the People: The Furburbia Story (.pdf)
This 14-page manual describes how the successful Furburbia pet adoption center in a Salt Lake City, Utah mall operates and how to create a mall adoption center in your community.

NEW AND IMPROVED!  Super Adoption: Finding Homes for Hundreds at a Time (.pdf)
A Super Adopion is a cooperative effort among multiple animal groups to adopt out a large number of animals at one event.  Includes sample materials and lots of tips on conducting successful Super Adoptions.

A Few Tips on Organizing Your Own Adoption Day (.pdf)
The L.A. Pet Adoption Festivals routinely adopt hundreds of animals. A smaller version of this event can be done on a modest budget. This guide explains the basics.

Designer Pet Adoptions (.pdf)
Homeless animals prancing and purring in the display windows of Chicago's swankest boutiques? The "Angels with Tails" walking tours find homes for hundreds of cats and dogs and highlight the need for spay/neuter and adoptions to end the killing of shelter animals.

The Power of Three Legs (.pdf)
Once the first to be labeled unadoptable, homeless pets with special needs are rising to the top of the A-List at shelters. Article by Faith Maloney.

Home for the Holidays (.pdf)
Challenging accepted wisdom, the nation's top adoption expert says that shelters should hold adoption drives during the holiday season. Article about Mike Arms.

Temperament Testing in the Age of No-Kill (.pdf)
In this six-page article, Nathan Winograd discusses the complexities inherent in temperament testing for shelter dogs and describes how temperament testing is being used to preserve life at Tompkins County SPCA.

A Dirty Little Secret (.pdf)
Temperament testing sounds harmless enough, but it's a method that's being used to sanitize the troubling business of deciding who's "adoptable" and who isn't. Article from Best Friends magazine, January/February 2004.

Looking for a Breed
What to know before you get one, where to adopt, and what to expect from various breeds. Also, myths about mutts - they may make you see Scruffy in a whole new light.

FORUM TRANSCRIPTS

For a complete list of forum archives, including other topics related to adoptions, please click here.