ADOPT A PET VIA SHELTER WEB SITE CUTE FACES ONLINE MAY LURE PET LOVERS, CUT EUTHANASIA RATE.

Byline: Sylvia L. Oliande Staff Writer

BURBANK - Hoping to tug at the heartstrings of potential pet owners and adopt out an influx of cats, Burbank's animal shelter is posting photos of available animals on the Internet, officials said Tuesday.

The Burbank facility has received an average of 10 cats a day since late June, when kitty breeding season began, and expects to continue that pace through September, when the season ends, shelter officials said.

So to boost adoptions, the city shelter is using www.petbond.com, an Encino-based Web site that allows visitors to see pictures of animals in participating shelters or search for a particular breed among all the facilities.

``I really hope it finds homes for animals,'' said shelter superintendent Fred DeLang. ``I hope it makes putting animals to sleep obsolete. I really, really hope to see that in my lifetime.''

The site, founded by Encino residents Craig Winter and Alisa Merlin, is available to the shelter for free and is used by Los Angeles and other city shelters. Burbank volunteer Debbie Ko is handling the chore of getting the photos taken, putting them up on the site and taking them down when the animals are adopted.

Normally, the experience of picking out a pet is very tactile; people want to hold the dog or cat and look into its eyes - impossible through a computer screen.

But shelter volunteers said what the Internet can do is take the sting out of searching for an animal, often an emotionally difficult process of visiting various shelters and feeling sorry for those that won't be taken home.

``The way it is most effective is if you're looking for a white, female terrier, you can look it up on the Internet, see that the East Valley shelter has one and it will be available on Wednesday,'' said Elaine Hurd, a La Canada Flintridge resident and East Valley shelter volunteer. ``You know then that you have to be there on Wednesday. That's a lot different than saying to yourself, I'll stop by one day.''

Although DeLang said it's too early to gauge the effect the site will have on Burbank adoptions, it has already reunited at least one family with their beloved dog.

Burbank has an impressive record for adopting out animals, primarily because of a weekly cable access television show hosted by Vice Mayor Bob Kramer.

City officials said Burbank's euthanasia rates last year were 27 percent for dogs and 51 percent for cats. DeLang said it is more difficult to get owners to spay or neuter cats, so there are more of them around.

In contrast, during fiscal year 1998-99, the city of Los Angeles euthanized 72 percent of the dogs that came in and 70 percent of the cats. And in 1998, 74 percent of the dogs in Los Angeles County shelters were destroyed.

Officials at other cities hope Web sites can help reduce those rates. Volunteers for the six shelters in the city of Los Angeles, and for the cities of Long Beach and Santa Monica, have all been posting animals on petbond.com and other privately operated sites for several months.

The Los Angeles County animal shelter system maintains its own searchable database to adopt out its animals.

Steven Cunningham, director of volunteer programs for the Los Angeles City animal shelter, said the Internet wasn't just an avenue the department wanted to try, but is something shelters have to try if they are interested in raising their adoption rates and reuniting owners with lost pets.

``PetBond really allows us to update this almost in real time,'' Cunningham said. ``We can prevent people from having to look for animals that are not here. It's hard on staff to have someone call to adopt and have to tell them that the animal had to be euthanized.''

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Burbank shelter officials are offering this kitten and others for adoption via a Web site.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer