Terms of Use

These Terms cover your use of Forever Home. By using the site, you agree to them. Forever Home is an early prototype, so features may change and some data is sample data. No real payments are processed on the site.

When a shelter is marked “reviewed,” it means an administrator looked at the details the shelter entered before its dogs went public. It is not an independent check of the organization’s legal status, licensing, charitable status, identity, or the health, safety, or quality of any animal.

• Give accurate information and keep your password to yourself.
• What happens under your account is your responsibility. Tell us if you think someone else got in.
• You can create an adopter account or, if you are authorized to act for an organization, a shelter account. You do not need an account to browse dogs or to send an adoption application.

• Be honest in your profile and applications.
• Applying sends your name, email, and message to the shelter that listed the dog. It does not obligate the shelter to reply or to approve you.
• Sort out the actual adoption directly with the shelter, and be decent to the people you talk to.

• Only register if you are allowed to act for the organization, and keep your listings accurate.
• You are responsible for what you post and for how you handle the applicant information you receive.
• Only make public the profile fields you mean to. Anything you keep private is not shown to visitors.
• Do not list animals you cannot place, and do not misrepresent an animal’s health, history, or needs.
• You must have the right to submit the dog photos, descriptions, logos, and other material you upload.

Forever Home is a place for adopters and shelters to find each other. It is not a party to any adoption. In particular:

• We do not control or guarantee a shelter’s decisions.
• We do not guarantee that any animal is available.
• We do not independently verify every statement made about an animal.
• We do not guarantee that an adopter will be approved.
• Any adoption agreement, adoption fee, or other arrangement is strictly between the adopter and the shelter.

Please evaluate the shelter and the animal for yourself before making any decision. This does not remove our own responsibility for how we operate the platform.

Donations happen on a shelter’s own external platform, not on Forever Home. When a shelter has added its donation link, the Donate button sends you to that external page, where any giving happens directly between you and the shelter under that platform’s terms.

• Forever Home does not process donations.
• Forever Home does not receive or hold donation money.
• Forever Home does not take a percentage of donations.
• Forever Home does not collect card or bank information through the donation feature.
• The external donation platform and the shelter control the donation transaction.

Any donation total shown on a shelter’s page is self-reported by the shelter. Forever Home does not verify or independently track it.

You are responsible for what you post. Do not upload or post:

• Unlawful content.
• Fraudulent or deliberately misleading information.
• Harassment or threats.
• Another person’s private information without appropriate permission.
• Malware or malicious code.
• Content that infringes someone else’s intellectual-property rights.
• Content meant to abuse, disrupt, or attack the service.

• Forever Home’s software, branding, design, and original site content belong to Forever Home or its licensors, where applicable.
• You keep ownership of the content you submit. You give Forever Home the limited permission it needs to store, display, and operate that content so the site can work. We do not claim ownership of a shelter’s photos or content.
• Do not copy, scrape, reproduce, or redistribute the site’s protected content or branding without permission, except where the law allows it.

Shelters can add external links, such as a donation page or a photo hosted elsewhere, so Forever Home may send you to third-party websites.

• We do not control those websites.
• Their own terms and privacy policies apply, not ours.
• Please review those policies before providing information or making a payment on an external site.
• To the extent permitted by applicable law, Forever Home is not responsible for the content or practices of third-party websites.

Do not use Forever Home to attempt any of the following:

• Accessing accounts or data that are not yours.
• Stealing credentials or impersonating another user.
• Intentionally bypassing access controls.
• Introducing malware or malicious code.
• Disrupting or overloading the service.
• Exploiting vulnerabilities to gain unauthorized access.

To keep the site safe and to enforce these Terms, we may remove or restrict content, hide listings, suspend or restrict access to accounts, and limit access when needed to protect users, investigate abuse, or protect the service.

Some listings are screened automatically for banned language. Clear violations are blocked, and unclear cases may be published but sent to a person to review rather than removed outright. Moderation is done in good faith, automated screening is not perfect, and we cannot promise to catch every violation.

You can permanently delete your own account while signed in, and we ask you to re-enter your current password to confirm. Deleting your account signs you out and ends your active sessions.

Deleting your account does not necessarily erase every non-identifying operational record. For example, an adoption application you already sent may remain as a record for the shelter, with your identifying information redacted. The Privacy Policy explains what is removed, what is redacted, and what may remain.

• Forever Home is a prototype and may change.
• Features may be added, removed, or changed.
• We may temporarily suspend or restrict the service for maintenance, security, or other operational reasons.
• We do not guarantee that the service will always be available or uninterrupted.

We may update these Terms as the site develops. When we make a significant change, we will update the date at the top of this page. Forever Home is operated by [organization name, to be decided]. Questions about these Terms? Use the contact page.