Welcome to Petfinder.com! The virtual home of 306,942 adoptable pets from 12,593 adoption groups

Basic Instructions For Using Petfinder

Log In

To get onto the Petfinder administration system to edit your shelter's pet list:

  • Be sure you're visiting the ADMIN log in page, and not the VISITOR's log in page. Here is the correct page for your shelter to log in: http://www.petfinder.com/admin/
  • Enter your Shelter ID and Password in the appropriate boxes at the left side of the screen. Click on SUBMIT. (Remember your Shelter ID and Password are case-sensitive. This means that your shelter should always be entered in all CAPS with no spaces- such as NJ94) You will next see a screen called "Pet List Maintenance" where all of your shelter's pets will be listed with basic information like breed, age, sex and an option for pictures.

Post and Edit Pet Descriptions

To add a pet to the list:

  • On the top of your shelter's Administration page, click on the "Add New Pet" link.
  • Enter the appropriate information for your animal, including up to three photos using each "browse" button.
  • Click the "Add Pet" button at the bottom of the page, and check the "Add Another Pet" box if you plan on adding another pet.

To edit a pet already posted on Petfinder:

  1. Click on the Home/Pet List link on the top of your shelter's Administration page.
  2. Click on the pet ID of the animal you'd like to edit.
  3. Edit the necessary information, and be sure to click "Update Pet" at the bottom of the page to save your changes.

Add Photos

The presence of photos increases the number of times a pet description is read by up to 10 times!

To submit pet photos:

  • Prepare the photos for upload in advance by saving them as JPEG (.jpg) files. The file size should not be larger than 8 Megs.
  • On the "Pet Information" form, hit the BROWSE action button and find the photo file where it is saved on your computer. You can upload up to three photos, one photo using each BROWSE button. When you hit the ADD PET or UPDATE PET action button at the bottom of the page, the photo file will be uploaded along with the pet information you have entered.
  • If you can't see the BROWSE, ADD PET, UPDATE PET, or SAVE CHANGES buttons, you may need to update your browser.
  • If you are having any other type of problem with picture uploads visit our picture help page.

Delete/Change Photos

You cannot delete a photo once it is listed in your animal's profile. Instead, you can use the "browse" button again to overwrite an existing photo.

If you do not have any photos to use for your animal, and have accidentally placed a photo, you can replace it, using the "browse" button, with another graphic of your own, or with this 'unavailable' graphic:

http://members.petfinder.com/~generalftp/unavailable.jpg

Remove a Pet

To delete a pet from the list:

  • To the right of each listing on your "Home/Pet List" page is a checkbox.
  • Mark the pet(s) that need to be removed from the list by clicking in the checkbox at the end of each pet's line that is to be removed.
    Be very careful, deleted pets are not retrievable, and will need to be reentered if mistakenly deleted.
  • Click the "delete" button at the bottom of the list.
  • The changes are processed immediately.

Edit Your Home Page

A few pointers to help you edit your home page:

  • On your "Pet List Maintenance" page, click the "Edit Home Page" link. The "HTML reference" link is provided, for you, to learn a little about how to use HTML (hyper text markup language). In addition, you can find guidelines and instructions on the Internet. You may also use one of the many books available, such as HTML, for Dummies or The Idiots Guide to HTML. These two user-friendly manuals are simple but thorough starting guides. However, you can also learn just by playing around. Have fun!
  • Remember that in HTML, anything in brackets is programming language and will NOT appear on the web page.
  • Most functions must be opened and closed. For example, if you use the bold <B> function, make sure you close it with </B>, so that unnecessary words don't get bolded. So in the editor the words would look like: <B>words to bold</B> but when you look at the page, you would see words to bold.
  • Text that is not in brackets will appear on the viewer's screen.
  • A simple way to start is to just replace the lines that look like:
    <!--Remove this entire line, and enter your shelters current news -->
    with information about your group and the topic it mentions. You should remove that entire "Remove this entire..." sentence, as well as the symbols surrounding it. Anything in between those symbols will be invisible on your web page.
  • It is a good idea to copy and paste your HTML file from the online editor into a word processor file and save it on your computer regularly so that you have a backup.
  • You updated your home page, but the changes haven't taken effect.

    Any changes you make in your "Edit Home Page" area go into effect immediately, once you press the "Save HTML File" button. If you do not see the updated version of your web page when viewing it from the public side, then you may just need to press refresh/reload (F5 key) on the page you're viewing. Sometimes web browsers store recently viewed pages so that you don't have to re-download the entire page. However, if the content has recently changed (such as adding/deleting an animal or text), they will not appear until you refresh the page and force your web browser to display the most recent version of the page.

    Also note that the built in AOL web browser often has difficulty refreshing or reloading a page. In this case, you should connect to AOL as usual, then minimize the entire AOL program and load up Internet Explorer. You can then navigate to your web page with Internet Explorer, which should be able to properly reload the page.

If you view your shelter home page and none of your changes have been made, it may be due to one of the following reasons:

  • Your computer has saved a copy of your previously viewed page in its buffer and is trying to save you time by not actually downloading a page it 'thinks' you have already downloaded. Try clicking the REFRESH button (IE and AOL) or RELOAD button (Netscape) in your browser to force it to reload.
  • Also, the Petfinder system is very complicated and runs on several computers. This can at times confuse some Web browsers. You may be looking at the files on one computer, but the changes you made were saved to another. At about midnight (est) all the computers combine files. Your changes to the page should then become visible.

Your Contact Information & Shelter Information

To update or change your organization's information:

  • Click on the EDIT SHELTER INFO action button which is located toward the bottom of the "Pet List Maintenance" page. This will take you to your organization's membership file. This file consists of two parts:
  • Shelter/Organization Information:
    The address, phone number, and email address in this section appears on your public Web page and on each pet's page.
  • Contact Information:
    This information is not publicly accessible and does not appear anywhere online unless it is the same as the shelter information. It is used for administrative and e-mail list-serve purposes only.
  • Password:
    You can edit your Petfinder password on this page as well. Simply type in the new password in both password boxes and click the SAVE CHANGES button. If you receive an error stating that you must fill in an address, please do so. You will not be allowed to change your password without providing an address. Should you not wish to be contacted by telephone, please put "email only" in the telephone field.

Thank you for your dedication and keep us posted on your efforts!

E-mail Petfinder Technical Support for Help

If you do not find what you need in these pages and require further assistance please send us a message.

Petfinder Support Off-line

Susan Greene, Outreach Assistance: 607.589.7341

Back to Main Help for Members Page

advertisement

From Our Library

Web Site Basics

Even the smallest rescue needs a Web site these days. A site will reach more people than you could ever hope to reach otherwise. It is the simplest way to let the world know about the work you're doing, what you stand for, and most important, what pets you have available for adoption. It can be and, for your purposes, it should be a very inexpensive tool.

If you don't know how to make a Web site, you have two choices - you can learn, or you can turn the task over to someone else. Read more...