Terms of Service

1. Agreement to These Terms

By using animal-shelter.org/ (the "Site"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you don't agree, please don't use the Site. These Terms form a legally binding agreement between you and the publisher of animal-shelter.org/ ("we," "us," "our").

Read these Terms alongside our Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and Disclaimer.

2. About This Site

animal-shelter.org/ is an independent informational directory of U.S. municipal animal services, county shelters, humane societies, SPCAs, and rescue organisations across all 50 states. We are not animal control, an emergency dispatcher, a shelter, a humane society, an SPCA, a veterinarian, a pet poison control hotline, or any government agency.

3. Eligibility

The Site is intended for general use by adults conducting lawful research about U.S. animal welfare and sheltering. Younger readers are welcome but the site is not designed to collect information from children under 13 — we comply with the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), 15 U.S.C. §§6501–6506.

4. Permitted Use

You may use the Site for personal, professional, journalistic, academic, and lawful research purposes — finding a shelter to adopt from, locating animal control to report a stray, looking up cruelty-reporting routing for your county, finding low-cost spay/neuter, foster volunteering, disaster preparation, or similar uses. You may share links to our pages in personal correspondence, on social media, or in professional communications. Journalists, researchers, and animal-welfare professionals may quote short excerpts under fair use, with attribution to animal-shelter.org/ and a link back to the source page.

5. Prohibited Use

• Using the Site in violation of any applicable federal, state, or local law
• Animal cruelty or neglect under any state’s cruelty statute
• Animal fighting (federal felony under 7 U.S.C. § 2156)
• Operation of an unlicensed commercial breeding facility under the Animal Welfare Act
• Filing knowingly false cruelty complaints to harass an individual
• Harassment of shelter staff, animal-control officers, humane investigators, veterinarians, rescue volunteers, or pet owners
• Doxing — publishing personal information to enable harassment
• Misrepresenting an untrained pet as a service animal
• Fraudulent ESA letters
• Use of microchip-registry data for stalking or unlawful tracing of pet owners
• Misuse of “lost pet” or “found pet” reporting channels for fraudulent purposes
• Operation of a puppy mill, backyard breeder operation marketed as “rescue,” or similar deceptive enterprise
• Pet theft — many state cruelty statutes specifically address this
• Practising as a veterinarian, attorney, humane investigator, or animal-control officer without proper licensure
• Scraping, harvesting, or systematically extracting content from the Site for resale, republication, or to power a competing directory
• Using automated tools to send a high volume of requests that interferes with normal Site operation
• Attempting to gain unauthorised access to the Site, our systems, or any account or data — also an offence under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. §1030
• Introducing malware, viruses, trojans, worms, or any other malicious code

6. Intellectual Property

All content on the Site — text, layout, design, graphics, logos, organisation, and code — is owned by us, licensed to us, or used with permission, and is protected by United States copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property law.

You may view and print pages for personal or professional reference. You may not copy substantial parts of the Site, reproduce our editorial structure, or republish content commercially without our prior written permission.

Names of national organisations (ASPCA, HSUS / Humane World for Animals, Best Friends, American Humane, NACA, SAWA, AVMA, AAHA), municipal animal services, county shelters, humane societies, SPCAs, and rescues belong to the relevant body. Our use is for the practical purpose of identifying the organisation each page covers and does not imply sponsorship, endorsement, or affiliation.

7. User-Submitted Content

If you submit content to us — a correction report, feedback, dial-test failure, or comment — you confirm that you own it or have the right to share it, that it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, that it is not defamatory, threatening, harassing, obscene, or unlawful, and that it does not contain confidential or restricted information. You give us a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use the submission for the purpose of operating and improving the Site.

8. Third-Party Links and Services

The Site links extensively to U.S. municipal animal services, county shelters, humane societies, SPCAs, rescues, the ASPCA, Humane World for Animals (HSUS), Best Friends, American Humane, NACA, SAWA, USDA APHIS, the CDC, microchip registries, Petfinder, Adopt-a-Pet, and other authoritative sources. We have no control over those sites and cannot guarantee their availability, accuracy, security, or accessibility. A link from us is not an endorsement beyond the specific information we are pointing to.

9. Advertising Disclosure

The Site is funded by display advertising. Advertisements are served by recognised ad networks and labelled as advertising where required. We do not allow advertisers to dictate editorial content; verified municipal animal services and shelter contacts always come first on every page. We do not accept advertising from breeders, puppy mills, online pet-classifieds without welfare standards, ear-cropping/tail-docking services, dog-fighting paraphernalia, or operations that contradict our editorial position on animal welfare. Where any commercial relationship exists, it is disclosed in context per the FTC Endorsement Guides at 16 C.F.R. Part 255. Full position in our Editorial Policy and Disclaimer.

10. Changes to the Site or These Terms

We may add to, change, or remove parts of the Site at any time. We may also update these Terms from time to time. The “Last reviewed” date at the top reflects the current version. Substantive changes will be flagged on the homepage banner for at least 30 days before they take effect.

11. Disclaimer of Warranties

• The Site is provided on an “AS IS” and “AS AVAILABLE” basis
• WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT
• We make no warranty that the Site will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or free from viruses or other harmful components
• We make no warranties about the accuracy, completeness, currency, reliability, or suitability of any information on the Site for any particular purpose — including any phone number, address, hours of operation, or fee schedule for any shelter, animal control office, humane society, SPCA, rescue, or veterinary clinic
• We are not responsible for the operations, decisions, or treatment of animals at any shelter, animal control office, humane society, SPCA, rescue, or other organisation listed on the Site

The full operational disclaimer is on the Disclaimer page.

12. Limitation of Liability

• WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES — INCLUDING ANY HARM TO A PERSON OR ANIMAL FLOWING FROM RELIANCE ON THIS SITE — ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF, OR INABILITY TO USE, THE SITE
• OUR TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ANY MATTER RELATING TO THE SITE IS LIMITED TO ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($100), EXCEPT WHERE A HIGHER AMOUNT IS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW

13. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from any claims, losses, costs, or expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising from your breach of these Terms — including any animal cruelty, animal fighting, harassment of shelter or animal-control staff, doxing, fraudulent cruelty complaints, or any infringement of any third-party right through your use of the Site. This clause does not apply to consumers using the Site for personal, non-commercial purposes except where the loss arises directly from a deliberate or reckless breach.

14. Suspension and Termination

We may suspend or restrict your access to the Site without notice if you breach these Terms in a material way, your use causes a security risk or operational problem, we are required to do so by law or court order, or we discontinue all or part of the Site. You may stop using the Site at any time.

15. Dispute Resolution

If a dispute arises out of these Terms or your use of the Site, please contact us first at info@animal-shelter.org with subject line “Dispute resolution” so we can try to resolve the matter informally. We commit to a good-faith response within 30 days.

If we cannot resolve the dispute informally, you and we agree to binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, except that:

• Either party may bring an individual claim in small-claims court if it qualifies, instead of arbitration
• Either party may seek injunctive or other equitable relief in court for intellectual-property infringement
• The arbitration will take place in Delaware, or, by agreement of the parties, in the state where you reside
• Class-action waiver: arbitration will be conducted on an individual basis only — no class actions, class arbitrations, or representative proceedings

AAA Consumer Arbitration Rules: adr.org/Rules.

16. Governing Law and Jurisdiction

These Terms and any dispute arising under them are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. For any matter that is not subject to arbitration under Section 15, the courts of New Castle County, Delaware (and the federal courts located in the District of Delaware) have exclusive jurisdiction, except that:

• If you are a consumer in another U.S. state, nothing in these Terms deprives you of the protections of mandatory state consumer law in your state of residence
• If you are a consumer outside the U.S., you may have rights to bring proceedings in your jurisdiction of residence under applicable consumer-protection law

17. General Provisions

Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and Disclaimer, set out the entire agreement between you and us in relation to the Site.

Severability. If any provision is unenforceable, the rest continues in full force.

No waiver. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of our right to enforce it later.

Assignment. You may not transfer your rights or obligations without our written consent. We may transfer ours to a successor in business as part of a corporate restructuring.

Force majeure. We are not liable for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control.

18. Contact

For any question about these Terms, email info@animal-shelter.org with the subject line “Terms inquiry.”