Guide to help in your vetting process

Using petOffenders responsibly, and vetting applicants well

Draft prepared July 29, 2026

This guide has two halves that pull in opposite directions, and that is deliberate.

Part I — Restraint

How to use the registry narrowly, and why you must never tell an applicant that it played any part in your decision.

Part II — Openness

What the research actually shows about screening adopters: that most organizations screen far more than the evidence supports, and that doing so costs animals homes without making them safer.

Holding both at once is the point. A registry of documented cruelty and a barrier-light adoption process are not in conflict — but only if you keep them in their separate lanes.

What this guide is not

This is not legal advice and petOffenders is not a law firm. Where this guide describes legal exposure, that description is general. The evidence-based recommendations in Part II are sourced to the professional and peer-reviewed literature in the references, and you should read the sources rather than take our summary of them on trust.

Part I · Restraint · §1

What petOffenders is

petOffenders is a suggested database of public reports that may help you determine whether someone has committed some form of animal mistreatment. Read that sentence carefully, because every word in it is load-bearing.

A collection of reports, screened by a person and sorted by how well evidenced they are
Suggested — one input among several, and an optional one
A record of what people have reported
A prompt to ask more questions
Operated by a private nonprofit

Three tiers, and they are different in kind

The tiers exist precisely because reports differ in quality.

Tier 1 · WatchAn allegation. One person said so.One uncorroborated report. Never, on its own, grounds to refuse a placement — using it that way breaches your access agreement.

Tier 2 · VerifiedEvidence we have looked at.Evidence reviewed and found consistent with the allegation.

Tier 3 · RestrictedA court said so.A criminal conviction, or a judicial order restricting animal ownership, verified against the court record.

Why this matters

A Tier 1 record and a Tier 3 record are not different amounts of the same thing. One is an unproven claim by an anonymous person; the other is a court outcome. Treating them as points on a single scale is the most common way organizations misuse a registry like this.

Part I · Restraint · §2 · absolute

The non-attribution rule

This is the most important rule in this guide, and it is absolute.

The rule

Never tell an applicant — or their family, or another organization, or anyone on social media — that petOffenders was consulted, that a record exists, or that it played any part in your decision. Not in writing, not verbally, not by implication, not by hinting that “something came up.”

There are five reasons, and each is independently sufficient.

If you tell an applicant that a report says they neglected an animal, you have communicated that allegation to a new person. In defamation law the party who repeats a statement is generally liable for the repetition, on its own terms. Whatever protections petOffenders has do not transfer to you. You would be the publisher of an unproven claim about a named individual, and at Tier 1 you would be doing it without any corroboration at all.

This is the harm that actually happens, and it happens fast. Reports frequently come from neighbours, relatives, ex-partners and former co-workers. An applicant told that a report exists will usually guess correctly who filed it, and retaliation against reporters is a genuine risk — sometimes against the reporter, sometimes against animals still in the subject's care. Reporters file on the strength of a promise of confidentiality. You are holding that promise on their behalf.

Telling someone they were declined because of a report is adverse-action behaviour — it is the shape of conduct that consumer-reporting law regulates. Every party in this system relies on the position that these records are not consumer reports and that placement is not a covered purpose. Organizations that start issuing reason-based denials citing a database undermine that position for everyone, themselves included.

The placement decision is yours, made under your policies, and you own it entirely. petOffenders never approves or denies anyone. “The database flagged you” is both false and an evasion, and it will not survive the first applicant who pushes back.

Every applicant who learns that a registry exists and that a record about them is in it becomes an applicant who knows to try a different organization, to apply under a partner's name, or to contest the record strategically. Confidentiality is what keeps the tool useful.

Part I · Restraint · §3

Prompt, not verdict

Here is the correct mental model. A record does not tell you what to decide. It tells you what to ask about.

If a record concerns…

…the right response is to explore

Veterinary care history. Ask for the name of their clinic and permission to call. Ask what happened the last time an animal of theirs got sick.

Notice what happens in every row: the record changes your process, not your conclusion. You ask better questions. If the answers are good, you approve. Many applicants with a Tier 1 record are perfectly good adopters, and some will be able to tell you exactly what the report was about and why it was wrong.

DoLet a record slow you down and sharpen your questions.

Do notLet a record decide the outcome, or treat a lookup that returns nothing as a clearance.

Part I · Restraint · §4

Order of operations

Consult the registry last, not first. This matters more than it sounds.

Have the conversationMeet the applicant, discuss the animal, understand their household and expectations. Follow the guidance in Part II.

Complete and document your independent assessmentReferences, veterinary contact, home discussion, whatever your process includes. Write it down before you look anything up.

Reach a provisional decision on that basis aloneYour findings, your judgment, your file.

Only then, if your process calls for it, run the registry checkoptional · lastMost applicants never need one.

If a record appears, return to step 1 with better questionsDo not jump to step 3.

Why

The reason for this order is anchoring. If you read an allegation before you meet someone, you will interpret everything they say through it — a normal hesitation becomes evasiveness, an ordinary gap in their history becomes a concealment. Reversing the order protects the applicant from your bias and protects you from a decision you cannot defend. It also means most applicants never need a lookup at all.

Part I · Restraint · §5

Declining well

When you decline, decline on your own findings, in neutral language, without detail. You are not obliged to explain your reasoning, and explaining it is where organizations get into trouble.

Usable language

“Thank you for coming in and for considering adoption. After talking with you and reviewing your application, we’ve decided this particular match isn’t the right one. We’re not able to go into the details of how we reach these decisions. I’d be glad to talk with you about other animals who might be a better fit, either now or down the road.”

If pressed

“I understand that’s frustrating, and I’m sorry. Our placement decisions take a number of things into account and we don’t discuss the specifics with applicants. That’s our policy for everyone, not something particular to you.”

Language to avoid entirely

“Something came up when we checked.”

An implication is a disclosure. The applicant now knows a database exists and that they are in it.

“We found a report about you.”

Direct republication of an unproven allegation.

“We'd approve you but the system won't let us.”

False, and it makes petOffenders the decision-maker.

“You can clear this up by contacting petOffenders.”

Sends the subject to hunt for the record and, by extension, the reporter. If they want their record, they will find the subject-access process on their own.

Worth knowing

One thing worth saying: a decline is not a verdict on a person either. Most declines are about fit, timing, or a specific animal. Say so, and mean it, because it is usually true.

Part I · Restraint · §6

Documentation

Assume any placement file might one day be read by someone hostile — an applicant's attorney, a journalist, a court. Write it so that it stands up.

DoRecord the factual basis for your decision: what was said, who you spoke to, what the veterinary reference reported, what your own assessment found. Dates and names.

DoKeep registry lookups in a separate access log, not in the applicant's placement file.

Do notWrite “petOffenders Tier 1” in a placement file as the reason for a decline. That is a discoverable document containing an unproven allegation and no independent basis — the worst of both worlds.

Do notPaste, screenshot, forward, or print record contents. Ever, for any reason.

The test

If you removed every reference to the registry from the file, would the decision still be explicable and defensible on what remains? If not, you have not done the assessment yet.

Part I · Restraint · §7 · urgent

When there is an animal in danger right now

A record is historical. If you learn during an application that an animal is being harmed currently, that is a separate matter and it does not run through petOffenders.

Call your local animal control, or 911 if the situation is urgent. Cruelty is a felony offence in all fifty states and is charged under the law of the state where it happened — in Louisiana, for example, under La. R.S. 14:102.1. Our statute directory links every state's provisions. Open the statute directory →
Do not confront the applicant, do not investigate, and do not visit the property to check.
File a report with petOffenders afterwards if you have first-hand knowledge, as an Official Organization report.
Decline the placement using the neutral language above, without reference to any of this.

Part I · Restraint · §8

What your organization needs in writing

Access is granted to organizations, but breaches happen through individuals. Before anyone at your organization runs a lookup:

0 of 5 in place

Name your authorised usersAnd notify petOffenders when one leaves. No credential sharing, ever — not with a volunteer, not with a board member, not “just this once.”Train every one of them on the non-attribution rule specificallyIt is counter-intuitive: staff instinctively want to be transparent with applicants, and transparency is exactly what causes the harm here.Adopt a written internal policyStating that registry content is never disclosed to an applicant, and that a lookup happens only in connection with a pending decision.Designate one person to handle disputes and complaintsSo that a front-desk volunteer is never improvising when an applicant challenges a decision.Log why each lookup was madeLookups are audited, and a pattern that does not correspond to real pending decisions ends your access.

Ticks are remembered in this browser only. This is a self-audit aid, not a record we hold.

Now the other directionEverything above is about restraint. Everything below is about openness — and the evidence that most organizations screen far more than it supports.

Part II · Openness · §9

Start with what the research actually found

This part will be uncomfortable for some organizations, so it is worth putting the central finding first.

The finding

A 2020 study in Frontiers in Veterinary Science analysed the adopter-screening policies of rehoming organizations and concluded that they collect substantially more information about potential adopters than there is scientific evidence to justify — including information used to deny adoptions for which no scientific rationale exists at all.[2]

That is not an advocacy position. It is a peer-reviewed finding from the University of Lincoln, and it has been replicated in practice: a shelter that rebuilt its rehoming process on this evidence saw adoptions rise year-over-year within three months, alongside improved staff morale and better-reported adopter experience.[3]

The professional consensus has moved with it. The Humane Society's Adopters Welcome framework, Best Friends' Adoptions Training Playbook, and Maddie's Fund's Removing Barriers work all point the same direction: replace pass/fail applications with conversation, and remove criteria that do not demonstrably protect animals.[12][13][15]

95% / 93%Waiving or reducing adoption fees does not produce worse outcomesA Maddie's Fund post-adoption survey found 95% of dogs and 93% of cats adopted with no fee were still in their homes six to twelve months later — a retention rate better than typical.[15]

UnevenlyRestrictive screening falls unevenlyResearch on shelter animal flow has documented that intake and adoption patterns track community-level vulnerability, meaning barrier-heavy processes systematically exclude people from under-resourced communities rather than bad adopters.[7]

If the evidence says screen less, why would you consult a cruelty registry at all?

Because they are different things, and conflating them is the error. General screening criteria — fences, income, rent versus own, hours worked, whether someone already has a vet — are proxies. They stand in for adopter quality and the research says they are poor at it. A documented cruelty history is not a proxy. It is a specific, evidenced adverse fact about how a person has actually treated an animal.

The practical upshot. petOffenders should sit at the narrow end of an otherwise open process. If you find yourself using it as a general screening tool — running everyone, treating any record as disqualifying, adding it to a checklist of hurdles — you are working against the evidence and against the purpose of the tool. Fewer criteria, better questions, and one narrow check for documented cruelty is a defensible process. Twelve hurdles plus a database is not.

Part II · Openness · §10

What the evidence does support

Counselling, not gatekeeping

This is the highest-value thing in this entire guide, and it is routinely under-used. Pre-adoption counselling has measurable effects on outcomes: it improved house-training success among dogs acquired from shelters, and a later study by the same group found it reduced separation anxiety in newly adopted shelter dogs.[4][5]

The intervention that works is teaching the adopter. The intervention that mostly does not work is filtering the adopter. Most organizations invest heavily in the second and lightly in the first. Reversing that ratio is the single biggest improvement available to you.

Honest disclosure about the animal

Returns are more often about mismatched expectations than about bad people. Tell adopters what you actually know — the resource guarding, the separation distress, the fact that the cat hides for three weeks. Research on returns supports setting accurate expectations up front, and studies of relinquishment consistently find that owner-related circumstances weigh more heavily than the animal's behaviour problems.[6][10]

Post-adoption support

A returned animal is usually a support failure, not a screening failure. Behaviour help in the first month, a phone number that gets answered, access to affordable veterinary care, and a genuine no-shame return policy do more for outcomes than any application question.[1]

Matching rather than judging

The useful question is never “is this person good enough.” It is “which of our animals, if any, fits this household.” Those produce completely different conversations, and only one of them gets an animal placed.

Part II · Openness · §11

Conversation structure

Open questions, not yes/no. The goal is to understand a household well enough to match it, and to find the places where the adopter needs information.

Select a question to see what it actually tells you.

Listen for whether the answers are coherent, not whether they are correct. Someone who says the dog will live outside is not necessarily a bad adopter — they may have had only positive experiences with outdoor dogs. That is a conversation, and the Adopters Welcome materials make this point directly: dismissing them ends the chance to change anything.[12]

Part II · Openness · §12

Criteria to reconsider or drop

These are the common screening criteria for which the evidence base is weak or absent. Dropping a criterion does not mean ignoring the underlying concern — it means addressing it through conversation and support rather than through a gate.[2][12][13]

The problem with it

No general evidence it predicts outcomes. Excludes most apartment dwellers.

Better approach

Discuss exercise and containment for the specific animal. Require a fence only where that animal genuinely needs one.

The problem with it

Slow, often unobtainable, and excludes renters disproportionately.

Better approach

Ask about their housing situation. Offer help negotiating with a landlord.

The problem with it

Rarely standardised, so results are not comparable between applicants.

Better approach

Optional, framed as support and setup advice, not inspection.

The problem with it

Screens for wealth, not care. Falls hardest on under-resourced communities.

Better approach

Discuss cost realistically. Point to low-cost veterinary resources.

The problem with it

Arbitrary thresholds with no evidentiary basis.

Better approach

Match a lower-need animal to a busier household.

The problem with it

Penalises first-time and newly relocated adopters.

Better approach

Provide referrals. Follow up that they connected.

The problem with it

Ends the conversation where education would work.

Better approach

Explain what it involves. Most people change their mind when told.

The problem with it

No evidentiary support. A significant equity problem.

Better approach

Drop entirely.

The problem with it

Blunt proxy. Depends entirely on the animal.

Better approach

Match on the specific animal’s tolerance and history.

Worth knowing

A practical way to start: track your denial reasons for a month, find the single most common one, and remove that barrier first. You will usually discover you are declining people for something you cannot connect to any animal outcome.[12]

Part II · Openness · §13

Concerns that genuinely warrant a slower process

Why

Being honest about the evidence cuts both ways. The items below are not validated predictors, and we are not going to dress them up as such — they are professional judgment, drawn from field practice rather than from controlled study. Treat them as reasons to slow down and ask more, exactly as with a registry record. None of them is a reason to skip the conversation.

A documented cruelty conviction or an active possession ban. Verify the order independently through the court in the state that issued it. If an order is in force, placement may itself be unlawful.
Requests for a specific intact animal of a fighting-associated breed, particularly alongside questions about aggression, gameness, or breeding. Ask directly what they intend.
Rapid acquisition across multiple organizations. Worth a call to nearby groups — which you can do without mentioning any registry.
Applying on behalf of someone who is not present, or who was previously declined. A frequent workaround.
Refusal to provide any identification at all, combined with other concerns. Alone, this is often just privacy preference.
Material inconsistencies about who the animal is actually for, or where it will live.
Interest in an animal as a surprise gift for a household you have not spoken to.

What is conspicuously not on that list

Part II · Openness · §14

Measuring your own process

You cannot tell whether your screening works unless you count something. Four numbers, reviewed quarterly:

Denial rate, with reasons categorisedWhere your barriers actually are. Review the top reason every quarter and ask what animal outcome it protects.

Return rate, with reasons categorisedWhether returns are behaviour, support, or expectation failures. Mostly they are the last two.

Time from application to placementBarrier weight. Long processes lose good adopters to breeders and classifieds.

Post-adoption contact rate at 30 daysWhether your support is real or nominal. This is the number most worth improving.

Why this matters

If your denial rate is high and your return rate is also high, the screening is not working — it is filtering on the wrong things. That combination is the clearest signal available that the process needs rebuilding rather than tightening.

Part III

References

Read these rather than relying on our summary. All are open-access or publicly available.

Professional standards

[1]The Association of Shelter Veterinarians. The Guidelines for Standards of Care in Animal Shelters: Second Edition. Journal of Shelter Medicine and Community Animal Health. 2022;1(S1):1–76. doi:10.56771/ASVguidelines.2022The field's primary professional standard, peer-reviewed, developed over three years by a task force of nineteen shelter veterinarians with no industry funding. Uses an unacceptable / must / should / ideal format across 553 statements. Endorsed by the National Animal Care & Control Association.

Peer-reviewed research on adopter screening

[2]Griffin KE, John E, Pike T, Mills DS. Can This Dog Be Rehomed to You? A Qualitative Analysis and Assessment of the Scientific Quality of the Potential Adopter Screening Policies and Procedures of Rehoming Organisations. Frontiers in Veterinary Science. 2020;7:617525. doi:10.3389/fvets.2020.617525The central citation for Part II.Open source →
[3]Griffin KE. The Application of Scientific Evidence-Based Changes to an Animal Shelter's Rehoming Practices. Animal Behaviour and Welfare Cases. 2024. doi:10.1079/abwcases.2024.0013The applied follow-up: what happened when a shelter acted on [2].Open source →
[4]Herron ME, Lord LK, Hill L, et al. Effects of preadoption counseling for owners on house-training success among dogs acquired from shelters. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. 2007;231:558–562.
[5]Herron ME, Lord LK, Husseini SE. Effects of preadoption counseling on the prevention of separation anxiety in newly adopted shelter dogs. Journal of Veterinary Behavior. 2014.
[6]Hawes SM, Kerrigan JM, Hupe T, Morris KN. Factors Informing the Return of Adopted Dogs and Cats to an Animal Shelter. Animals. 2020;10(9):1573.
[7]Ly LH, Gordon E, Protopopova A. Inequitable Flow of Animals in and Out of Shelters: Comparison of Community-Level Vulnerability for Owner-Surrendered and Subsequently Adopted Animals. Frontiers in Veterinary Science. 2021;8:784389. doi:10.3389/fvets.2021.784389Open source →
[8]New JC Jr, Salman MD, King M, Scarlett JM, Kass PH, Hutchison JM. Characteristics of shelter-relinquished animals and their owners compared with animals and their owners in US pet-owning households. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science. 2000;3:179–201.
[9]Diesel G, Pfeiffer DU, Brodbelt D. Factors affecting the success of rehoming dogs in the UK during 2005. Preventive Veterinary Medicine. 2008;84:228–241.
[10]Jensen BHJ, Sandøe P, Nielsen SS. Owner-related reasons matter more than behavioural problems — a study of why owners relinquished dogs and cats to a Danish animal shelter from 1996 to 2017.Volume and year to be completed before this citation is relied on.
[11]Griffin KE, John E, Pike T, Mills DS. What Will Happen to This Dog? A Qualitative Analysis of Rehoming Organisations' Pre-adoption Dog Behaviour Screening Policies and Procedures. Frontiers in Veterinary Science. 2022;8:796596. doi:10.3389/fvets.2021.796596The companion paper, on assessing the animal rather than the adopter.Open source →

Practitioner frameworks

[12]The Humane Society of the United States / Humane World for Animals. Adopters Welcome: Finding, Engaging and Supporting More Adopters.Manual, FAQs, and a DIY action plan. The most widely adopted framework in the field.Open source →
[13]Best Friends Animal Society. Adoptions Training Playbook.Includes templates and SOP building blocks.Open source →
[14]Best Friends Animal Society. Overcoming Adoption Barriers: Executive Summary. 2016.
[15]Maddie's Fund. Removing Barriers to Adoption: How Evidence, Innovation and Compassion Grow Pet Adoptions.Includes the fee-waived adoption retention data cited in the research section.Open source →
[16]National Animal Care & Control Association. Statement on Support of Updated Association of Shelter Veterinarian Guidelines.Open source →

Law

[17]La. R.S. 14:102.1 — Cruelty to animals; simple and aggravated.Louisiana's operative charging provision, given as a worked example. Cruelty is a felony offence in all fifty states and is charged under the law of the state where it happened.
[18]La. R.S. 14:403.6 — Reporting of neglect or abuse of animals.Requires certain officers and government employees investigating child or adult abuse to report animal abuse they encounter. Cross-reporting provisions vary by state; check your own.
[19]Animal Legal & Historical Center, Michigan State University College of Law.Maintained consolidated cruelty statutes for every state and the District of Columbia, each with a last-checked date. Our statute directory links straight to these.Open source →

On the strength of these sources

Reference [10] needs its full citation completed. References [4], [5], [6], [8], [9] and [14] were identified through citation in other sources rather than read in full — verify each against the original before relying on it as your evidence base. Everything in Part II not attributable to [1], [2], [3], [7], [12], [13] or [15] should be treated as field practice rather than established finding, and the section on concerns warranting a slower process says so on its face.

← Back to registry access