Adopt-a-Pet Scraper

Scrape pet adoption listings from Adopt-a-Pet.com, the largest non-profit pet adoption website in North America with 15,000+ shelters. Search for dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, and horses by location and breed.

Features

• Multi-species: Search dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, and horses
• Location-based: Search by ZIP code or city/state
• Breed filtering: Narrow results to a specific breed
• Detailed profiles: Extracts breed, age, gender, size, color, shelter info, photos
• Smart discovery: Combines JSON-LD structured data, HTML link extraction, and shelter page crawling
• Proxy support: Optional Apify proxy for large-scale scraping

Output Fields

Field	Description
petId	Unique pet ID from Adopt-a-Pet
name	Pet's name
breed	Breed or breed mix
age	Age category (Baby, Young, Adult, Senior)
gender	Male or Female
size	Size category with weight range
color	Color/pattern description
description	Pet's story or bio
shelterName	Name of shelter or rescue organization
shelterLocation	City, State of the shelter
adoptionUrl	Direct link to the pet's adoption page
photoUrl	Primary photo URL
scrapedAt	ISO timestamp of when the data was scraped

Input Options

• Location (required): ZIP code or city/state (e.g. "90210", "New York, NY")
• Pet Type: dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, or horses (default: dogs)
• Breed: Optional breed filter (e.g. "poodle", "labrador", "siamese")
• Max Results: Maximum number of listings to return (default: 100, max: 5000)
• Proxy Configuration: Optional Apify proxy settings

How It Works

1. Searches Adopt-a-Pet by location and pet type
2. Parses JSON-LD ItemList schema for pet profile URLs
3. Falls back to HTML link extraction when structured data is unavailable
4. Crawls nearby shelter pages to discover additional listings
5. Visits each pet profile page and extracts detailed info via cheerio

Example Output

{
  "petId": "47219783",
  "name": "Rocco",
  "breed": "American Pit Bull Terrier",
  "age": "Adult",
  "gender": "Male",
  "size": "Large 61-100 lbs (28-45 kg)",
  "color": "Tan/Yellow/Fawn - with White",
  "description": "Rocco is an adventurous, affectionate companion looking for his forever home.",
  "shelterName": "Rehome by Adopt a Pet",
  "shelterLocation": "Union City, California",
  "adoptionUrl": "https://www.adoptapet.com/pet/47219783-union-city-california-american-pit-bull-terrier-mix",
  "photoUrl": "https://media.adoptapet.com/image/upload/...",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-04-25T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Use Cases

• Shelter analytics: Track adoption inventory across regions
• Breed availability research: Monitor availability of specific breeds by area
• Adoption aggregators: Build dashboards combining data from multiple adoption sites
• Market research: Understand pet adoption trends by type, breed, and location
• Alert systems: Monitor for newly listed pets matching specific criteria

Tips

• ZIP codes work best for precise location targeting
• Each search page returns up to 20 pets; the scraper automatically discovers more via shelter pages
• For large datasets, use proxy configuration to avoid rate limiting
• Breed names should match Adopt-a-Pet's naming (e.g. "labrador-retriever" not just "lab")

---

Run on Apify

This scraper runs on the Apify platform — a full-stack web scraping and automation cloud. Sign up for a free account to get started with 30-day trial of all features.

Try Apify free ->