The Pet Animal Shelter/Troy Animal Shelter Coalition, in partnership with the city of Troy, is making companion animal adoption easier for Pike County residents. The Pike Animal Shelter is now a member of petfinder.com, the oldest and largest searchable directory of adoptable pets on the Internet.Troy Police Chief Anthony Everage and the city’s animal control officers, Ken Andress and Carroll Connell, support the membership in Petfinder, which is a national Web site, said Donna Schubert, chair of the Founders Society. “Petfinder.com has a powerful data base system behind it,” Schubert said. “It’s a big deal in that the Pike Animal Shelter can now inventory the animals at the Troy Animal Shelter, assign them numbers and photograph them. The adoptable animals will be listed on the Petfinder Web site.” Schubert said the continuing commitment on the part of the Pike Animal Shelter is that the images may not be more than a week old.

Susan Green, adoption and programs chair and chief organizer of the PetFinder project, has assumed the responsibility of photographing the shelter dogs each week and updating the posting. Schubert said Green will also write descriptions of the animals and their personality traits. Anywhere in the nation, people have the ability to search for the desired pets through petfinder.com and that will increase the likely hood of the adoption of the animals at Troy Animal Shelter.

“The animal control officers began receiving inquiries about the shelter dogs almost immediately after the photos were posted to the Internet,” Green said.

Green expressed appreciation to Everage and the city’s animal control officers for their support of the initiative.

Pet seekers who are looking to adopt locally can visit petfinder.com and search to view currently available adoptable animals or call the Troy Animal Control at 372-2714 to schedule an appointment to visit the Troy Animal Shelter in search of an adoptable dog.