The search for Spot

People are looking on the Web for pets they will click with

How much is that doggie in the window? Well, it's a little more complicated than that.

Fifty years after Patti Page sang those lyrics, the idea of spotting a playful puppy behind a plate-glass window and carrying it home in a basket is quaint. At least to families like the Albaneses.

As Jennifer Albanese explained, their decision to acquire a new pet unfolded with the same precision a family might employ to shop for a car or a vacation home. First they drew up a timeline: Albanese hoped to have the dog arrive right after their July vacation, so there would still be plenty of time left before school started for her two children - Nicole, 10, and Peter, 6 - to become acquainted with the pet. To choose a breed, the Albaneses took an online quiz designed to match a family's personality and preferences with the ideal breed. The verdict: a Brittany spaniel.

To find their pet, they went online again, to Petfinder.com. A few months later, a young Brittany spaniel named Eli climbed into the back of a station wagon in Ohio for the first 90-minute leg of an underground railroad-style trip that would end in Massachusetts. A network of volunteers met Eli at various points to drive him eastward. For the last leg of the trip, Albanese's husband, Charlie, picked him up in Sturbridge and brought him to the family's Carlisle home.

The Internet - and in particular Petfinder, which serves as a clearinghouse for abandoned pets nationwide - is changing the way people look for pets. No longer is a search for a dog or cat limited to the local animal shelter and the classified ads. These days people are adopting animals from hundreds and thousands of miles away - and getting very specific about what they want in a pet.

Petfinder, which attracts 1 million visitors a month, includes listings from more than 11,000 shelters and rescue leagues, and last month the site set a record with 300,000 pets listed. Almost half are dogs; the other 50 percent are cats, birds, reptiles, rodents, and barnyard animals. The site - which was started as a homegrown nonprofit but is now owned by Discovery Communications - claims to have facilitated 12,000 pet adoptions since 1995.

When Patricia Higgins of Winthrop recognized that the cat she had loved for many years was nearing the end of his life, she turned to Petfinder with several requirements. She knew exactly what she wanted in a feline: a large, long-haired, adult male. ("I'm tall and older myself, so I want a large, older cat," she said.) She used these parameters to find Pasquale, who was living in a shelter in Brighton at the time.

On Petfinder, Melody Orfei of Concord found not only her dog - a Lab-German shepherd mix that spent her puppyhood in Memphis and then lived in Rhode Island - but also a volunteer opportunity. She now works on the site's behalf, conducting home visits with adoptive families (which some shelters and rescue leagues require). If a family in her region is interested in an adoption, Orfei talks with them and assesses the living quarters with safety in mind, then she submits a report to Petfinder. Generally, she said, it's the start of an ongoing connection; once the dog arrives, the family may contact Orfei with further questions about pet care and local resources.

The idea of searching online for pets has raised some concerns. Jana Kohl, a nationally known animal welfare advocate, said she worries that shady, mass-breeding operations are using websites to reach consumers.

"Phony rescue groups are increasingly posing on these sites, pretending to be genuine rescuers, when in fact they are puppy mill brokers or breeders," said Kohl, author of the new book "Rare Breed of Love: The True Story of Baby and the Mission She Inspired to Help Dogs Everywhere," which traces the author's quest for reform in the pet industry. Kohl said that people who want to find pets online should be aware that bona fide rescue groups screen pet owners, charge low adoption fees, and ensure that pets are spayed or neutered.

Not every potential owner is as amenable to taking in an animal they've seen only as a photo on a computer screen. To Susan Lehotsky of Carlisle, that idea was akin to a mail-order bride. She said she worries about the stress it puts on the animals. "I didn't want to adopt a dog that I couldn't meet first," she said. "And I didn't want a dog to go through the transfer just for me to be able to meet him or her."

She did end up finding her dog on Petfinder, and though she held to her principle of adopting locally, Lehotsky wound up with a pet with a long-distance history. "The dog we found, Lucy, came from Tennessee and was then adopted by a family in Holden, but they found it hard to integrate her into their household and decided they'd rather start with a puppy."

Jean Silver of Oxford did not want to put an animal through the stress of transport unless she was certain she wanted it - so she transported herself to Maine, to meet the Chinese crested crush she fell in love with after seeing his photo on Petfinder.com. "It was something about his eyes," she said. After exchanging several e-mails with his foster family, Silver traveled north along with her other dogs to meet Poco and take him home.