PetPoint's Policy Change

Pethealth Inc. has announced that it is refusing to continue to provide shelters' adoptable pet data from the PetPoint management system automatically to Petfinder.com unless it can charge for pet data or embed advertisements. Although Petfinder's Terms of Service do not allow advertising in the Pet Notes, we have continued to allow information regarding insurance and microchip relevant to the pets to remain on the page.

Of the 9 shelter pet management vendors with whom Petfinder has worked to set up the automatic import of pet data, it is only Pethealth taking this drastic step, citing a desire to generate more revenue for their company.

Pethealth's change of policy leaves already overburdened animal shelter and rescue groups faced with the decision to allocate scarce resources to re-enter all their pet information manually or to deny their pets the 5.2 million potential adopters coming to Petfinder each month to view them.

Petfinder shelter and rescue group members currently using the PetPoint system have told us that they are surprised and upset by this turn of events, particularly since a selling point used by Pethealth in gaining customers was that they would provide a free import of pet data to Petfinder.com, a tool upon which shelters rely for adoption promotion. Shelters and rescue organizations currently considering the use of a pet management system should be aware of this critical change in Pethealth policy and ensure that whatever vendor they choose to work with understands that the import to Petfinder is vital for their pets.

Petfinder is the #1 website in the Pets and Animals space with 5.2 million unique visitors (potential adopters) visiting the web site each month. Using a lesser known website (with far less potential adopters than Petfinder) could lead to euthanasia for pets.