A new initiative from Adolescents for Animals. We are currently looking for partner shelters to pilot this with.
Every animal waiting in a shelter has a profile written about them — a short description on a website that most adopters read before deciding whether to click. Shelter staff write these between everything else they are responsible for, often in a hurry. Research suggests those few sentences measurably affect how long an animal waits.
Write4Animals is our offer to help. Our volunteers rewrite adoption profiles for partner shelters, at no cost, following what the research says actually works. The shelter reviews and approves every word before anything is published.
Why the wording matters
This is not a matter of opinion. Several studies have looked at large numbers of real adoption listings and tracked how long each animal waited:
- In a study of cats in UK rescues, profiles written in the third person were associated with a significantly shorter average stay than those written as if the cat were speaking.
- Positive personality words such as affectionate, calm, easy-going, friendly and sociable raised how adoptable people judged a dog to be. The word energetic had the opposite effect.
- Researchers analysing over 70,000 dog profiles found the descriptive text was associated with length of stay, independent of the dog’s age or size.
- Removing breed labels from profiles has been found to increase adoption interest.
Put simply: the same animal, described differently, waits a different amount of time. That is a problem worth volunteering against.
What a rewrite looks like
Here is an illustrative example — not a real animal — showing the kind of change we would make.
Before
Bella — Pit Bull Terrier Mix, 3 yrs, 52 lbs. Spayed, microchipped, up to date on vaccines. Energetic dog, needs experienced owner. Not good with cats. Kennel #14.
After
Bella is three years old and lights up the moment someone reaches for a leash. She is affectionate and eager to please, and she settles happily at your feet once the walk is done. She knows how to sit and is quick to pick up whatever you teach her next. Bella would do best as the only pet in the home, where she can have your attention to herself. She is spayed, microchipped, and up to date on her vaccines, and she is ready to go home today.
What changed, and why
- Written in the third person rather than as a clinical record — associated with shorter stays.
- The breed label came out. It tells an adopter little and is known to reduce interest.
- “Energetic” became a specific, positive picture of what she is like on a walk. Same dog, same energy, different framing.
- “Needs experienced owner” and “not good with cats” became one honest, forward-looking sentence. Nothing was hidden — her needs are still stated plainly, just without sounding like a warning label.
- Positive information comes first, care requirements after. Adopters have been found to prefer that order.
The rule we hold ourselves to: a rewrite may never make an animal sound easier than it is. An adoption that fails and sends an animal back to the shelter is worse than a slower adoption that lasts.
How we use AI — and where we do not
We use an AI writing assistant to produce a first draft from the shelter’s own notes about an animal. That draft is then reviewed and edited by a member of our team, and sent to the shelter for approval. No profile is ever published without a person from the shelter reading it first.
The AI does not decide anything about an animal, does not assess temperament, and never invents details. Everything in a rewritten profile comes from information the shelter gave us. If we do not know whether an animal is good with children, the profile says so rather than guessing.
For shelters
If you run or work with a shelter and would like to try this, we would like to hear from you. There is no cost and no commitment — we would start with a handful of animals so you can see the work before deciding whether to continue.
Send us the animals’ existing profiles and any notes your staff or fosters have, and we will return drafts for your approval. You can use them, edit them, or discard them.
Measuring whether it works
We will track how long animals wait before and after a rewrite, and publish what we find on this page — including if the answer turns out to be that it made no difference. A program that claims results it has not measured is not worth running.
Research referenced above: Nakamura et al. (2019) on descriptive texts and length of stay in dog profiles; Wells & Hepper on narrative voice in cat adoption profiles; and studies on breed labelling and personality descriptors in perceived adoptability. Links to all sources are available on request.
Adolescents for Animals 