Review - The Adopted Dog Bible
Kim Saunders of Petfinder.com offers guidance on adopting a dog
May 19, 2009
In The Adopted Dog Bible: Your One-Stop Resource for Choosing, Training, and Caring for Your Sheltered or Rescued Dog [Stonesong Press, 2009], Kim Saunders provides an overview of adopting a rescue or shelter dog through the website, Petfinder.com, as well covering all aspects of dog care.
Petfinder.com is a searchable database listing pets available for adoption. Petfinder.com claims to have assisted in more than 12 million animal adoptions since its founding. Petfinder.com now boasts about 5 million visitors per month. The website currently has over 275,000 pets available for adoption and over 25% of the dogs available for adoption are purebred dogs.
History of Petfinder.com
The Petfinder.com website is the brainchild of Betsy and Jared Saul who founded the website in 1995. Their goal was to make it easier to match potential pet adopters with pets available for adoption so that no adoptable animal would have to be euthanized due to lack of a home. Petfinder.com was purchased by Discovery Communications (owner of the Discovery Channel) in 2006.
Author Kim Saunders, currently Vice President of Shelter Outreach and Public Relations of Petfinder.com, began volunteering with a dog rescue operation following the adoption of her dog, Kona, in 1995. In 1999, Saunders became the first staff member at Petfinder.com.
How Petfinder.com Works
The website is a clearing house for thousands of shelters and rescue organizations throughout the United States. Shelters and rescue organizations provide information to Petfinder.com about the animals they currently have available for adoption.
The Petfinder.com searchable database allows one to enter in a zip code and the size, age and breed of dog one is interested in adopting. In response to these parameters, the website will provide a list of available dogs meeting these criteria in a specific geographic area. For each dog, there is a picture accompanied by the dog’s history (to the extent known) as well as a temperament evaluation. In some cases there is even video available of the dog.
What The Adopted Dog Bible Offers
The first half of the The Adopted Dog Bible devotes several chapters to pre-adoption decisions:
- advice on the differences between the different breeds of dog, including a useful sidebar on common myths about pit bulls, a misunderstood breed that often make wonderful, loving pets
- how to select the correct breed for the owner’s lifestyle and family situation
- the issues associated with adopting a puppy versus adopting an adult dog
- advice on handling the costs of adoption and dog ownership
- useful list of questions to ask the shelter/rescue staff when meeting the dog for the first time
Dog Care
The second half of The Adopted Dog Bible deals with all aspects of dog care, from feeding to training to health concerns.
- useful tips on negotiating the dog park and on how to evaluate doggie day care
- basics of training and dog care including chapters on diet and grooming, health and travel, common dog ailments, including a chapter on holistic medicine for dogs
- excellent chapter on problem behaviors and helpful solutions noting that “nearly everything that we view as a ‘problem behavior’ is actually a normal canine behavior that is occurring at the wrong time or in the wrong place for us humans.”
The text of The Adopted Dog Bible is enlivened by pictures of dogs accompanied by their inspirational adoption stories.
The Adopted Dog Bible is an invaluable resource for anyone considering adopting a dog and the chapters on dog care are useful for any dog owner. To learn more about adopting a dog, listen to the Good Dog Podcast from January 2009, “Adopting a Dog with Kim Saunders” in which Saunders shares her extensive knowledge of the rescue dog adoption process with host Joanne Greene.
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