Looking For A Puppy? - Adoption

Pounds: Are often government run and funded. If there is a pound in the area, they are the ones who do Animal Control, take strays, do not take surrenders unlike shelters and rescues. Go by rules by the county or whatever government that is funding them.

Shelters: Usually run by individuals and private organizations. They take in owner surrenders, some are no kill. Funding operated by donations and fundraisers. Staff may or may not be paid. Can make their own rules and policies, to a point. Shelters typically are able to keep animals longer than pounds as they are able to control their own funding. Animal Shelters often work closely with rescue groups, because shelters who have difficulty placing otherwise healthy animals would usually rather have the animal placed in a home than euthanized; while the shelters might run out of room, rescue groups can often find more volunteers with space in their homes for temporary placement.

Humane Societies: You usually hear this term more closely associated with large organizations such as Best Friends Humane Society, Humane Society of United States, etc… but can also be associated with small rescue groups too. You’d have to investigate further to see what you are dealing with.

Rescue Groups: These are usually a small group of dedicated volunteers. It’s usually a network of people with 1 person’s home as a base of operations or no base of operations at all. Also completely run on donations and fundraisers. Rescue organizations are usually a not for profit business that typically operate through a network of volunteer foster homes. These rescue organizations are usually committed to a no-kill policy. A rescue group is dedicated to pet adoption. These groups take unwanted, abandoned, abused, or stray pets and attempt to find suitable new homes for them. Many rescue groups are created by and run by volunteers, who take the animals into their homes and care for them; including training, playing, handling medical issues, and solving behavior problems until a suitable permanent home can be found.

Rescue groups exist for most types of pets; for example, rabbit rescue or bird rescue, but are most common for dogs and cats. For animals with many breed types, many rescue groups specialize in specific breeds or groups of breeds. For example for dogs there are Bichon rescues, Lab rescues, Doberman rescue groups, etc… or general all breed rescue groups, as well as large or small breed rescue groups.