Adopt a Pet provides APIs to select partners to display adoptable pet information on their own websites and platforms. Our latest partner API documentation is available below. This is different from the free Pet List API available to each animal shelter and rescue user to display just their pets.
Please note: We are not able to provide API keys to students or other organizations outside our partners. If you are interested in becoming a partner, email info@adoptapet.com
September 29, 2025 Updates:
- The search_form endpoint returns a new and improved list of breeds which matches the breed list on the Adopt a Pet website (and includes designer breeds such as Puggle, Aussiedoodle, Cockapoo, among others).
- The limit for the maximum number of pets returned from the pet_search endpoint has been raised from 500 to 10,000. There is a limit of 500 pets that can be retrieved at one time using the pagination parameters start_number and end_number.
- The pet_search endpoint now returns pets from Rehome, Adopt a Pet's private owner adoption program.
- The pet_search endpoint now accepts a cared_for_by parameter, which filters pets by which types of organizations are caring for the given pets. Valid values are 'shelter', 'rescue', or 'private_owner'.
- The pet_search endpoint now accepts a `sort` parameter to adjust the ordering of the pet results. Valid values are 'nearest' or 'newest'.
- The pet_search endpoint now returns higher quality, better optimized, and better cropped pet photos.