Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi! We are about to open our free/low cost community wellness program where we will be providing vaccinations, flea/tick prevention/ dewormer, heartworm tests, parvo tests, FIV/leuk tests and other very basic vetting. We currently use Shelterluv for our in house management software but we are hoping to find a separate program to use for keeping track of our community wellness program clients and their animals while also able to print medical/vaccine records for them. It is proving difficult to get demo's set up with most veterinary software companies, does anyone have a suggestion on programs that would work for this? I know we could technically do it all through shelterluv but I am having issues figuring out how to set it up. Any advide would be much appreciated!

#CommunityPartnerships*
#DataandTechnology

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Desiree Flanery
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We use ShelterBuddy, and it has a great Clinic section that is pretty easy to use. I've also found their help site and customer service to be super helpful (customer service is very responsive, usually less than 24 hours!). We don't have a publicly available clinic/vet, but we use the Clinic area to add animal information that we get from owner before their intake/surrender appointment. Part of what we like for Shelterbuddy is that it has our shelter-owned animals, public pets/people, and volunteers (VolunteerBuddy add-on) all in one location. 

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Erin Dams
Operations Director
Roanoke Valley SPCA
Roanoke VA
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Hi Desiree, 

I don't have any good advice! Instead, I'd love to ask what steps you took successfully to be able to open this clinic.. Are you renting a physical space? What sort of initial grant funding did you receive perhaps from your city, state, or donors? How are you purchasing the vaccinations?

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Farrah Goff
President
10 Lives Rescue NY Inc
NY
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Hi! We are using our existing facility for the actual clinic space, though it is small and we are in the process of renovating a 16x20 building on our property that will be used as our primary medical building. We are actually receiving private funding from a foundation that helps fund our organization quarterly for this clinic. They will be fully funding it, thankfully. Unfortunately, we are located in a very rural Appalachian area and we serve three states (OH, WV, and KY) and a lot of counties in WV and KY do not have shelters or even access to veterinary care withing 2+ hours in some areas. We are just in a very poverty stricken area in general, so it may not be fancy or state of the art but it will do! Our main goal in doing this is to help people in our area retain their pets and to improve quality of life for pets in our area that otherwise would suffer. We had 25 dogs and 30 cats dumped at our facility within a 2-3 month period over the summer and they were all medical disasters, but if they would have just had some basic care they wouldn't have been such a mess. 

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Desiree Flanery
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-12-2025 07:45 AM
From: Farrah Goff
Subject: Veterinary software for Free/Low cost community wellness program?

Hi Desiree, 

I don't have any good advice! Instead, I'd love to ask what steps you took successfully to be able to open this clinic.. Are you renting a physical space? What sort of initial grant funding did you receive perhaps from your city, state, or donors? How are you purchasing the vaccinations?

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Farrah Goff
President
10 Lives Rescue NY Inc
NY
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Take a look at Rescue Groups--it might possibly be made to work in this context.  If you pay the small fee for the Data Management package, you will be able to track all of your vet care, your client contact info, add in reminders for your staff to reach out to clients.  It allows you to connect dogs to adopters/owners.  It also allows you to print a vet care report using the "journal" function on the "kennel card" -- which then will have a picture of the dog, their chip number, and all of the other info you input (which is incredibly useful if that dog later ends up stray in the shelter system, as you'll have their chip and photo on file to get them home very quickly).  We print out one of these reports to go in the adoption packet we send home, so I think it would work okay to send to owners.  It's mildly annoying that it's not organized chronologically but by category (e.g., all the  rabies vax boosters are grouped).

If you do microchip implanting as part of the clinic work, you can have Rescue Groups automatically register the chips once they're connected to the owner's record.  Datamars/Petlink has phenomenal shelter reps for low-cost chips without the commitment to one ecosystem 24PW tries to impose.

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Maggie Thomas
President
Red Stick German Shepherd Rescue
LA
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I have a background in programming and human electronic medical records. I'm moving out of the country in about 18 months and have been looking at trying to customize some open source (usually free) vet programs that run on older equipment.... My main goal is developing software for the temples in SE Asia, for the most part the Buddhist temples have unwanted cats & dogs dumped on their ground because of the monk's vows to take care all living creatures.

It's got me interested in program after a decade or so of a break. 

I'd be interested in know what shelters and vet clinics (also for livestock) workers would like in a program as well. A lot of times when software is being developed the MBAs are more worried about bean counting than the ease of use for the clinicians and other people who have to use it every day. I'd definitely be interested in hearing what people have to say about their work flow and expectations of what a good program would have to make life easier.

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Joe Keenan
developer
Dread Cat Productions
OH
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Congratulations on launching your community wellness program! Those programs make such a huge impact.

One thing I'd consider is whether you really need a traditional veterinary practice management system. Many are designed around appointments and billing, which can be more complex (and expensive) than what community wellness clinics need.

We built PawPlacer to be flexible enough for programs like this. You can create pet and owner records, track vaccines, heartworm/FIV/FeLV/parvo tests, deworming, flea & tick preventatives, prescriptions, and other medical services, then generate and print medical or vaccination records for clients. Since everything is customizable, you can set up workflows specifically for your wellness program without affecting your shelter operations.

Compared to many shelter management and veterinary platforms, PawPlacer offers a more robust, fully customizable solution without the licensing costs. It's completely free, so organizations can access advanced features without having to compromise based on budget. If you're exploring options, we'd be happy to show you how other shelters are using it for community wellness programs. You can see a comparison of PawPlacer.

Feature	PawPlacer	Shelterluv	Petstablished	RescueGroups	PetPoint	Chameleon	Shelter Manager	Pawlytics
Cost to Rescue*	FREE	$2000/year	$576/year*	Quote	Quote	Quote	~$350/year	$1,000/Year
Free Forever	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🟡	🟡
White-Glove Data Migration & Onboarding	🟢	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟡	🔴	🟡
National Adoption Network	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
Integrated Adoption Platform (Listings • Applications • Messaging • Social Sharing)	🟢	🟡	🟡	🟡	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
AI Pet Matching	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
Post-Adoption AI Veterinarian & Trainer	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
Team Chat (Slack-style)	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
Online Fundraising	🟢	🟡	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
Website Wishlists	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
Flyer & Template Designer	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
Transport Coordination	🟢	🟡	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
Event Management	🟢	🟡	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
Animal Management	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢
Medical Management	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟡	🟢	🟢	🟡	🟢
Adoption Management	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢
Foster Management	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟡	🟢
Volunteer Management	🟢	🟡	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟡	🟢
Donor CRM & Fundraising	🟢	🟢	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟡	🔴	🟡
Owner Surrenders	🟢	🟡	🟡	🔴	🟢	🟢	🔴	🟡
Forms & Workflow Builder	🟢	🟢	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟢	🔴	🟢
People CRM	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟡	🟢	🟢	🟡	🟡
Task & Workflow Management	🟢	🟢	🔴	🔴	🟡	🟡	🔴	🟡
Customizable Dashboard	🟢	🟢	🟡	🔴	🟡	🔴	🔴	🟢
Scheduling & Calendar	🟢	🟡	🔴	🔴	🟡	🟢	🔴	🟡
Reporting & Analytics	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟡	🟡
Website & Public Listings	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟡	🔴	🔴	🟡
Marketing & Flyers	🟢	🟡	🟡	🟡	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
Payments & Donations	🟢	🟢	🟡	🔴	🟡	🟡	🔴	🟡
API and SDK	🟢	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟡
Mobile / Responsive	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟡	🟢	🟡	🟡	🟢
Administration & Security	🟢	🟢	🟡	🟡	🟢	🟢	🟡	🟡
*Pricing Notes
Based on yearly cost serving 1,000 adoptions
PawPlacer: Free forever. No subscription fees, no per-adoption fees, and no feature tiers.
Shelterluv: Charges $2 per completed adoption with no annual subscription fee.
Petstablished*: Standard subscription is $48/month ($576/year). This fee may be waived for organizations that use Petstablished's integrated payment processing and meet certain program requirements.
RescueGroups, PetPoint, and Chameleon: Pricing is customized and generally available only through a sales quote.
Shelter Manager: Hosted plans typically start around $350/year, depending on deployment and options.
Pawlytics: Tiered pricing beginning at $29/month, increasing with adoption volume.

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Kyle Leighton
Founder
PawPlacer
NY
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-07-2026 01:12 PM
From: Joe Keenan
Subject: Veterinary software for Free/Low cost community wellness program?

I have a background in programming and human electronic medical records. I'm moving out of the country in about 18 months and have been looking at trying to customize some open source (usually free) vet programs that run on older equipment.... My main goal is developing software for the temples in SE Asia, for the most part the Buddhist temples have unwanted cats & dogs dumped on their ground because of the monk's vows to take care all living creatures.

It's got me interested in program after a decade or so of a break. 

I'd be interested in know what shelters and vet clinics (also for livestock) workers would like in a program as well. A lot of times when software is being developed the MBAs are more worried about bean counting than the ease of use for the clinicians and other people who have to use it every day. I'd definitely be interested in hearing what people have to say about their work flow and expectations of what a good program would have to make life easier.

------------------------------
Joe Keenan
developer
Dread Cat Productions
OH
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