Pet Adoption Made Easier by Volunteers at Rescue Web Site

The plaintive barks and rows of pleading eyes had become too much for Mechelle Dondo.

She wanted to adopt a dog, but the chaos and gloom of the pounds near her Hollywood home made it impossible for her to choose one.

But after finding Animal Match Rescue Team’s Web site, an Internet showcase for hundreds of animals at shelters in Southern and Central California, she saw a Jack Russell mix with big brown doe eyes at the East Valley Shelter -- and she was sold.

Dondo, 34, and Niblet have now lived together for five months, and she credits the Web site with bringing them together.

“I don’t think I would have chosen her, even if I had happened to go to that shelter,” Dondo said. “When you’re looking in every cage, the sadness starts overwhelming you to the point you can’t see an individual dog’s personality.”

The site has been running for three years, powered by about 200 volunteers who cart digital cameras and notebooks nearly every week to shelters from Fresno to San Diego.

They post photos and descriptions of the animals on www.amrt.net, hoping to reach would-be pet owners who are either skittish about shelters or want a more efficient way to find a pet to adopt.

The animals’ pictures often capture their personalities, like the stocky Chihuahua who glared into the lens or the skinny yellow Labrador mix who cocked his head at the camera, a long pink tongue lolling out of his mouth.

The descriptions range from facts about age, weight and date of availability, to snappy narratives about each animal, such as a 90-pound shepherd mix at the Camarillo shelter characterized as a “big, silly, happy-go-lucky goofball. He wants attention and was standing on the bars, looking for a friend.”

“Shelters are sad places,” said Laura Beth Heisen of Reseda, who has worked with the Web site since its creation. “But the Web site gives people the courage to go inside because they’ve already fallen in love with a face and know they’re going to walk out with an animal they’ve saved.”

Carolyn Stern, a computer programmer from Garden Grove, created the site after noticing that similar ones such as Petfinder.com relied entirely on shelter employees to take and post the photos.

Having a volunteer-staffed site allows for more frequent updates and for shelters to be represented even if they don’t employ any technologically savvy people, shelter officials said.

On a recent trip to the East Valley Shelter in North Hollywood, Heisen cooed to the cowering dogs and cats to lure them to her lens.

Paws outstretched and moist noses pressed against the bars, the dogs started wagging their tails as Heisen talked to them, taking notes on each animal’s behavior.

A curly, dark-haired terrier who pressed herself against the cage was quickly judged to be “affectionate,” and a black-and-white kitten earned a “spunky” label after repeatedly trying to swipe at Heisen’s pen.

On the Web site, the animals are organized by shelter location, then by type of animal.

“We want people to see what’s everywhere so they can get what they want,” Heisen said. “Whatever you have in mind, you can find it. You just have to find it in time before they kill it.”

Often, the site draws people to the shelters who didn’t realize the variety of animals available, Heisen said.

“A lot of people follow the myth that shelter animals are throwaway animals, that they have health or behavior problems,” she said. “But they’re full of purebreds, puppies, kittens -- animals whose owner moved or died or married someone with an allergy.”

Although the shelters don’t track which animal is adopted through the site, officials have plenty of anecdotes about happy matches.

Jean Miller, kennel supervisor for Ventura County’s shelters, remembers a couple who drove down from San Francisco to pick up a Siamese cat, and a woman who came in from Fresno to get an Australian shepherd after spotting them on the site.

“The Web site gives them some direction, so they don’t have to blindly drive around from shelter to shelter,” she said. “It absolutely has helped animals that wouldn’t have lived otherwise.”

Some animals are so adoptable that Heisen doesn’t worry about them -- the docile tan cocker spaniel with ice-blue eyes who’s sure to find a good home or the chipper brown Chihuahua who exudes affection and gives kisses on command.

But for others, like a mother and her three kittens who must be adopted as a group, or a dark-eyed Australian shepherd so petrified she refuses to pose, Heisen knows their options are limited.

“The hardest thing is to resist taking them all home,” said Heisen, a government lawyer who has two dogs, four cats and a litter of kittens.

However, she said, she and the other volunteers try to be honest in their descriptions, noting when an animal seems aggressive or overly timid or if they have health complications.

“Otherwise they’ll have problems when they get home and bring them right back,” she said. “We want to make sure the animal’s personality is one they’re ready for.”

As she crouches on the cement floor, conversing with the animals as if they were professional models -- “Ooh, that was a cute one” and “Oh gosh, you just put your nose in the way!” -- Heisen tries to find out enough about each that she can write a proper description.

“We try to note what appeals to us and include little stories, like the cat who stretched up into my hand -- he was so friendly,” she said. “Then the adopter feels like they’ve already met the animal, and it forges a connection.”

For Dondo, the description of Niblet was what convinced her the dog was ideal.

“It said she was really sweet, that even though she was a little timid she forced herself to approach the bars and say ‘Hi,’ ” Dondo said. “And then when I met her, a tiny, little trembly thing, I knew she was meant for me. I didn’t even have to look at the others.”