PetFinder Pet Listings Scraper

A robust data extraction tool that collects detailed adoptable pet listings from PetFinder in a structured, analysis-ready format. It helps teams track adoption availability, study trends, and build data-driven insights around animal welfare using clean, reliable pet adoption data.

     

Created by Bitbash, built to showcase our approach to Scraping and Automation!
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Introduction

This project extracts comprehensive information about adoptable pets listed on PetFinder, including animals, shelters, and locations. It solves the problem of manually browsing and aggregating scattered adoption listings. It’s built for developers, researchers, analysts, and organizations working with pet adoption and animal welfare data.

Designed for adoption data workflows

• Collects structured pet listings across multiple locations and filters
• Captures rich metadata for pets, shelters, and geography
• Outputs analysis-ready datasets suitable for research or monitoring
• Handles pagination and large result sets efficiently

Features

Feature	Description
Custom search URLs	Scrape listings from any PetFinder search URL with filters applied.
Detailed pet profiles	Extracts breed, age, size, sex, status, and publish date.
Location intelligence	Includes full address data with latitude and longitude.
Media extraction	Collects primary and additional photo URLs per pet.
Organization data	Captures shelter names, IDs, and contact details.
Scalable pagination	Automatically processes multi-page search results.
Proxy support	Improves stability and success rate for large runs.

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What Data This Scraper Extracts

Field Name	Field Description
petId	Unique identifier of the pet listing.
url	Direct link to the pet’s public profile.
type	Animal type such as dog or cat.
breed	Primary breed and mixed-breed indicators.
basicInfo	Name, age, sex, size, status, and publish date.
photos	Primary image and full image gallery URLs.
location	Address, city, state, postal code, and coordinates.
organization	Shelter or rescue name, ID, and contact details.

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Example Output

[
    {
        "searchUrl": "https://www.petfinder.com/search/dogs-for-adoption/us/ca/los-angeles/",
        "petId": 75181194,
        "url": "https://www.petfinder.com/dog/rocky-75181194/",
        "type": "Dog",
        "breed": {
            "primary": "Pit Bull Terrier",
            "isMixed": false,
            "label": "Pit Bull Terrier"
        },
        "basicInfo": {
            "name": "ROCKY",
            "age": "Young",
            "sex": "Male",
            "size": "Large",
            "status": "adoptable",
            "publishedAt": "2025-02-14T08:28:30+00:00",
            "organizationId": "A2183062"
        },
        "photos": {
            "primary": "https://dl5zpyw5k3jeb.cloudfront.net/photos/pets/75181194/1/",
            "all": [
                "https://dl5zpyw5k3jeb.cloudfront.net/photos/pets/75181194/1/"
            ]
        },
        "location": {
            "address": "3201 Lacy Street",
            "city": "Los Angeles",
            "state": "CA",
            "postalCode": "90031",
            "coordinates": {
                "latitude": 34.0835506,
                "longitude": -118.2188081
            }
        },
        "organization": {
            "name": "City of Los Angeles North Central Animal Shelter",
            "displayId": "CA763",
            "contact": "(888) 452-7381"
        }
    }
]

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Directory Structure Tree

PetFinder Pet Listings Scraper/
├── src/
│   ├── runner.py
│   ├── extractors/
│   │   ├── petfinder_parser.py
│   │   └── location_utils.py
│   ├── outputs/
│   │   ├── exporters.py
│   │   └── schema.py
│   └── config/
│       └── settings.example.json
├── data/
│   ├── inputs.sample.json
│   └── sample_output.json
├── requirements.txt
└── README.md

---

Use Cases

• Animal welfare researchers use it to analyze adoption trends, so they can study breed availability and regional demand.
• Rescue organizations use it to monitor listings, so they can benchmark visibility and adoption velocity.
• Data analysts use it to build dashboards, so they can track shelter activity over time.
• Developers use it to power pet adoption apps, so users get up-to-date listings automatically.

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FAQs

Can I limit how many pet listings are collected? Yes, the scraper supports a maximum item limit to control dataset size and runtime.

Does it support different animal types and locations? It works with any PetFinder search URL, allowing filtering by animal type, size, age, and geography.

Is location data included for mapping and analysis? Yes, each listing includes full address details and geographic coordinates when available.

What output formats are supported? The extracted data is structured for easy export into formats like JSON, CSV, or spreadsheets.

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Performance Benchmarks and Results

Primary Metric: Processes hundreds of listings per minute depending on filters and network conditions.

Reliability Metric: Maintains a high success rate with automatic pagination and retry handling.

Efficiency Metric: Optimized requests minimize redundant page loads and unnecessary processing.

Quality Metric: Delivers high data completeness across pet profiles, media, and shelter metadata.

"Bitbash is a top-tier automation partner, innovative, reliable, and dedicated to delivering real results every time." Nathan Pennington Marketer ★★★★★

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