Pets with health challenges are becoming increasingly easy to find homes for, thanks to social media. That's the word from a number of San Francisco Bay Area shelters interviewed for a recent East Bay Express article:

One could come to optimistic or not-so-optimistic conclusions about why disabled pets are growing in popularity. But most adoption experts interviewed for this story agreed that people are more willing to adopt animals with special needs than they used to be. "What the public sees as adoptable has grown so much," said Finnegan Dowling, communications associate at Humane Society Silicon Valley.

Collectively, have our hearts expanded? Maybe. But more likely, the increase in special-needs adoptions can be traced to rescue groups and shelters' use of social media. Posting the photos and backstories of pets with disabilities on Twitter and Facebook is helping save animals that, in the past, may have been the first to be euthanized, said Gary Hendel, the new director of Oakland Animal Services.

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Hendel related the story of a dog with a deformed front leg that arrived at Animal Care Services in San Antonio, where he previously served as director. "He wasn't a highly adoptable dog, and we thought, 'Geez, what are his chances of getting a home?'"

But then the staff at the municipal shelter named the dog "Tiny Tim" and sent out a press release asking for donations for help pay for surgery to repair its leg. They received $16,000 — far more than they had anticipated, and enough to start a permanent fund for animals that needed special medical care.

"We must have had twenty to fifty people interested in adopting Tiny Tim," Hendel said. "There's a certain kind of person who has been there all along, who, when you tell them an animal's story, will open their heart."

Mike Murray, director of community outreach at Pet Food Express and the chairman of California Golden State German Shepherd Rescue, said that, in his experience, people who don't actively surf rescue websites or attend adoption events will often respond to posts on Facebook and Twitter about dogs with special needs. "I think rescue organizations and shelters do a better job of positioning these animals and celebrating the qualities they do have, rather than their limitations," Murray said.

Read the rest here, and share your personal experiences with finding homes for treatable pets on our Facebook page!