Shelter Management

ShelterLuv Setup Guide Congratulations on signing up for the ShelterLuv animal shelter manager! Sometimes, setting up new software for the first time can be daunting. This article outlines how I set up my ShelterLuv account as a first-time user, and I let you know all the mistakes I made so you can avoid them! This ShelterLuv setup guide also acts as a checklist, and by the end of this guide, your account will be completely set up for your shelter or rescue! Logging In And Tutorials After weeks of animal shelter software comparisons, it’s finally time to log in! It took me 10 minutes to click my way through the tutorials and stumble my way to familiarity with the interface. After a few annoying techy issues, such as clicking buttons that didn’t work, I finally got to the browser configuration screen on the computer to get started.  I didn’t find the tutorials to be particularly helpful unless I got stuck and needed to find a how-to. This guide will walk you through the setup process for your accounts and help you quickly and easily learn how to use your new ShelterLuv software.  Step One: Configurations, Locations, and People Before you try to add any animals, just head to Settings and Configuration from the start. You’ll need to add Locations and People before assigning any Animals.  I quickly filled out the My Organization details with a short description I grabbed from our website and added our shelter’s logo. I then added our shelter and foster locations to the Location Management section.  Tip: Search for the name to add a Person Adding a Person is not obvious. You have to search for the name, and when there are no matches, you can add a new Person.  Next, I added myself as a Person so I could assign cats to myself 🙂 I decided that I would finish other configurations later, such as creating adoption applications, setting up ShelterPay, and adding Partner organizations.  Step Two: Adding your Cats Once I labeled a few things and created a few People, it was time to add an Animal! There is a lot of information you can add to the pet profile, but you can also skip many sections if you don’t have the information requested. I plan to have another team member add more to each cat’s profile since they have more specifics. To add an Animal, select a Person, then Add an Animal. I opened our Petfinder account and started copying cats over to ShelterLuv to get their profiles started. My shelter currently has 25 cats available for adoption, which means I’ll be creating a few profiles. At this point, it was worth a quick review of the FAQs to see if there was a bulk upload or import option. I did not see a bulk create Animal option. So, 24 more cat profiles to go!  So far, it’s taken me about 2 minutes to enter each pet with basic information manually.  Tip: Don’t DOA! After making about eight profiles, I noticed one of them was labeled as Deceased status. It’s taken me 15 minutes to figure out what I need to do to change the status. It appears I need to delete the animal profile, which also requires a few steps. Once I deleted the Outcome associated with the profile, I was able to delete it. It was a bit frustrating, but I learned how to do it.  Ok, 17 more profiles to go! I’ll be sure to look out for the Live/Dead status from now on.. I just found out that in the first section, Intake Sub-type, I had selected Found by Public (DOA).  Tip: Clone! After making another five or so, I noticed the Clone option, which saves another minute per profile creation. You can Close the previous record or a Super Clone, which allows you to create a number of identical records. I don’t know why this didn’t show up in my FAQ search. Hopefully, this tip saves you some time! Now that all your animals are added, the next steps will be to review more settings, configure adoption forms, and integrate ShelterLuv with Petfinder, AdoptAPet, and our website.  Step Three: Back To ShelterLuv Account Configurations  I decided to start at the top and work my way down through every tab, which is something I usually do with similar technologies. Under Age Groups, I added a Young Cat category for six months to two years. Two+ years old is an Adult Cat. I think kitties stay young until they are four or five, but for these records, two years old will suffice.  Under Marketing, I added Petfinder to How did you hear about us? We receive a lot of inquiries through Petfinder, and I’m hoping ShelterLuv can help us get more out of AdoptAPet as well. I also changed TV and Radio to Google Search and Email or Newsletter, which are more applicable marketing channels for us. You can spend some time here to improve content as needed. Other features like payment services, meta products, Facebook, and optional cookies provide features you can build out, such as adoption ads and more cookies choices for a safer experience. You can improve meta products and the ad experience through ShelterLuv. Here are our resources for improving your adoption profiles and how to take great adoption pictures. Step Four: Uploads and Integrations Under My Organization’s Website, you can generate a widget for your website to display adoptable cats. Send this to your webmaster contact, or copy and paste it into a page on your website.  You’ll need to request FTP information for AdoptAPet and Petfinder. They provide directions, which may include emailing support.  There’s a GTM connection section. I’ll explore this further to see what data we can access.  Under the Contract Manager, the Adoption Contract collects information about the organization and animals. There are also four basic policies the adopter agrees to.  Digital Adoption Packets look pretty cool! These are resources you

Best Animal Shelter Software – 2025 Review If your animal rescue is evaluating shelter, kennel, or volunteer software, we have you covered with our analysis of the top programs your team should consider. In this review, we’ll cover what a top animal shelter software program does, outline the features, and compare pricing to help you find the right management software solution for your shelter. What Types Of Animal Shelter Software Are There? Nonprofits, humane societies, SPCAs, animal control agencies, animal services organizations, and rescue groups use a variety of shelter and animal management software. Organizations may use digital programs to manage volunteers, fundraising, donors, accounting, and animals. In this animal management software review, we’re focusing on animals and volunteers, primarily for cat rescue and cat shelter facilities. For other situations and needs, there may be other animal management software that will work better. The top animal shelter management software programs for cat rescues are:  ShelterLuv Review ShelterLuv is an animal shelter management software that manages animals, people, and programs. It’s sponsored by Maddie’s Fund, Best Friends, and a few local animal welfare organizations. The ShelterLuv shelter software supports physical shelters, foster-based programs, and field and community services. ShelterLuv also offers a donation boost program that helps you maximize donations with every interaction. ShelterLuv charges $2.00 per pet adoption and offers a 14-day free trial of the service. ShelterLuv Features: Homepage Video – Mobile Checkout and Donation Boost How-To Video – Self-Guided Tour + Donation Boost  ShelterLuv is so easy to use, this is the only video you should need. The home base page has four tabs: Animals, People, Partners, and Transactions.  Videos – Take-A-Tour  ShelterLuv Review Conclusion ShelterLuv is a pretty comprehensive animal and people shelter manager. There is a $2 per adoption fee, but they offer a way to accept donations, which should cover the fee and generate additional revenue for your rescue. Overall, this is an intuitive animal management software that is a great choice for most animal shelters and animal rescue groups. Here is our setup guide for ShelterLuv, which covers the initial configurations you’ll do after you sign up. RescueGroups Review RescueGroups is a free rescue management software that any rescue could consider. They offer the ability to display adoptable animals on your website and push them automatically to all your pet adoption sites like Petfinder and Adopt a Pet. You can’t easily do that without software, and this is free, looks easy to use, and is designed to empower animal welfare organizations.  The RescueGroups website is helpful with several videos to help you understand their services. They are a 501c3, which is always nice, and they offer free and low-cost services that are all rescue-focused.  RescueGroups is a 501c3 nonprofit, and they created this service specifically to support other rescue groups and animal control facilities. They currently work with 6,000+ partners. RescueGroups offers a free animal rescue software and low-cost marketing services. RescueGroups Features Video of The Top 4 Services: A nonprofit animal welfare organization working for nonprofits and keeping costs low. Web-based services and cloud-based software allow you to access data anywhere. Main service – Pet Adoption Portal, which is free! For better adoption photos, check out our resources for how to take great photos and videos for your adoptables. RescueGroups Review Conclusion The services are limited in scope to the pet adoption portal and website and marketing support services. This software also seems limited just to animal management and doesn’t offer much for foster or volunteer management. The pet adoption portal is free, so this software would be great for nonprofit startups and new shelter rescue groups. The animal shelter software cost is free with additional paid marketing features. The website is helpful and informative about their services. Their support uses a ticketing system, which looks inconvenient. They have an easy signup feature that will automatically create an account for your rescue. Pawlitics Review Pawlytics is an cloud based animal shelter management software for animals and people. It offers you a centralized animal database, and management of your animal and organization’s records, and it provides forms and applications to make intake and adoptions easier. Pawltics charges $1 per adoption and offers a free 14-day trial. The website has a live chat feature, but I don’t see a dedicated support page so it’s likely a virtual it department.  Pawlytics is a startup with a fun entrepreneurial story and punny brand personality. Pawlytics Features There are also several other services and features listed as Coming Soon.  Pawlytics has a Blog with monthly posts that also feature their recent press.  The pricing page has a video featuring the Founder and CEO Lizz Whitacre. They strive to be an extension of your team! Pawlytics Review Conclusion Pawlytics is a newer cloud-based software that seems to do a good job of the basics for managing animal records, health records, and medical history. They have new features coming soon, like the ability to create custom forms and digital application forms, which will likely make this a more robust shelter management software for advanced shelters. If you are looking for an alternative to ShelterLuv, Pawlytics would be a great choice. Doobert Review It was a bit difficult to figure out what they offer since they do a few things. I spent quite a bit of time on their website, and Doobert is software designed specifically for transportation coordination, foster communication, and volunteers for smaller rescue groups. It also allows you to develop a network or coalition of supporters or other rescues.  The Doobert Fact Sheet was the best summary of the services I found. There are two ways to sign up for Doobert; you can make a Volunteer account or an Organization account. Doobert has over 5,300 registered organizations and 35,000+ volunteers. They also work with animal care organizations like Dallas Pets Alive! and Spay Neuter Network. Doobert Features Doobert’s program features three main areas. The Doobert Community (Volunteers), the Store, and their shelter software. I found this video, How Doobert