We think our friends at Get Your Pet have come up with a unique approach for rehoming pets. It can help shelters save their resources and help veterinarians grow their practices.

What is Get Your Pet?

Get Your Pet is a newly launched, nationwide website. It lets people who need to find a home for their pet to connect directly with people looking to adopt one.

Direct, home-to-home companion pet adoption keeps animals from being surrendered to shelters.

Studies show that one-third of pets entering shelters are surrendered. With Get Your Pet, shelters could save and re-allocate their limited resources if those pets were rehomed directly. They never came to the shelter at all.

Rethinking pet adoption

Get Your Pet has an insider’s understanding of the adoption process. It was co-founded by Angela Marcus, former Operations Director for the Pennsylvania SPCA. Here is how it works.

Pet owners (guardians) publish a profile, photos, and a video of their pets on the site for free. Adopters come to the site, browse, exchange messages with and arrange to meet up with guardians and their pets. These meetings take place in a neutral, low-stress location.

Adopters learn all about a pet from the person who knows them best. No more relying on under-resourced shelter employees, who attempt to predict how a pet will behave in a home environment. For many reasons, some people surrendering their pets fail to provide accurate or complete information to the shelter.

When a match is agreed upon, the adopter pays a $99 adoption fee.

This fee gets both parties legal adoption documentation, and defrays the cost of building, operating and publicizing the site. It provides the adopter a voucher for a veterinary visit redeemable at any participating Get Your Pet Vet  – including all Banfield Pet Hospitals.

In addition, adopters receive 30 days of free pet insurance (offer varies in California) and money-saving coupons from PetValu stores.

Working hand in paw to end pet homelessness

Saving companion animals is a community effort. Get Your Pet partners with animal welfare organizations to educate the public about this viable alternative to surrender. And they work with veterinarians who are dedicated to helping pets go from one good home to another.

Sadly, not every animal can be spared from entering a shelter. However, many pet guardians would consider home-to-home adoption if they knew about this resource.

Reducing the number of pets entering a shelter increases that shelter’s ability to care for pets who have no other options. This includes those who are strays, or victims of cruelty or neglect. Even if Get Your Pet is used only as a way to delay intake, shelters can prepare and better manage their populations more effectively.

Is your shelter, rescue, or municipal animal control interested to learn more? If so, please contact Get Your Pet directly.

And if you are a veterinary practice interested in becoming a trusted Get Your Pet Vet, register online today.