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[quote=Anonymous]New poster.  OP, my advice is that you go straight to Petfinder to search for dogs, and not focus on particular shelters.

In my experience, you're right that the shelter folks are often uptight and disorganized.  I believe it's because most of the shelter workers are youngish volunteers, who are there because of their love of animals, not their love of efficient customer service.  And shelters spend whatever little budget they have on rescuing more animals, not infrastructure and customer amenities.  Yes, I agree from a business perspective that it would be smart for shelters to spend more money and time training their volunteers to provide efficient customer service, so more families can adopt more animals more quickly.  But I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

In my experience, if you happen to find a dog you want from a breed-specific animal rescue group, as opposed to a general city run shelter, you'll get much better customer service.  The rescue groups seem to have less capacity than the shelters (because they're often relying on volunteers to foster the animals), so they're really motivated to move the animals they have to permanent families.  I've had a rescue league worker offer to arrange for volunteers to drive a dog to my neighborhood from hundreds of miles out-of-state.  If you're a good candidate (i.e., someone who has previously adopted a rescue dog, fenced yard, willing to take an adult dog instead of a puppy, etc.), they'll bend over backward for you.

Good luck!  Also, consider an adult dog (2-4 years old) -- IME, they're much better adoptions than puppies.  You can avoid many of the exasperations that come with puppies.  You often can read about the dog's background from the prior owner's bio, so you know more about the specific dog's personality.  All that leads to good adoptions.[/quote]

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