Thirty seconds of a dog leaning into a scratch does more for an adoption than anything we could write. If you have footage on your phone, we want it.
Pick the animal, choose the clip, tap send. It uploads straight to the LAWS YouTube channel from this page. No account, no app, nothing to install, and no emailing a huge file around.
None of this needs a good camera. It needs a phone, a minute, and an animal being themselves.
Hold it horizontally. That fills the video player properly here and on Petfinder. Held upright, the clip ends up as a thin strip with black bars either side.
Long enough to show who they are, short enough that people watch to the end. If you have five minutes of footage, send us the best minute of it.
Kneel or sit so the camera is at their eye height. Filming down at a dog from standing makes them look small and far away, which is the opposite of the point.
Face a window with the animal between you and the room. If the window is behind them you get a silhouette, and a silhouette adopts nobody.
A quiet room records better sound, and background music can get the whole video blocked on YouTube. Talking to them is welcome. A radio is not.
The tail going when you walk in. Kneading a blanket. Carrying a toy over to you. One specific moment beats a tour of the room every time.
One more, and it matters: check what else is in the frame before you send. House numbers, mail with an address on it, other people’s children. We check too, but two sets of eyes are better.
The clip uploads from this page to the LAWS channel, titled with the animal’s name. It goes up unlisted, so it is not on our public channel page and not in search. Only someone with the link can watch it.
The page hands it back the moment the upload finishes, already on your clipboard. Nothing to wait for and nothing to chase.
A LAWS volunteer checks it is the right animal, that it looks and sounds good, and that nothing private ended up in the shot. This is where we would come back to you if a second take would help.
This is the one step a person has to do by hand. Our shelter software accepts a YouTube link and nothing else, and it will not take one from an automated system. It is about fifteen seconds of work.
This website picks it up within the hour. Petfinder and Adopt-a-Pet read the same shelter record, so that one paste puts your video in front of everyone looking on any of the three.
When they get adopted their page becomes a happy ending rather than disappearing, and your video stays on it. Every link anyone shared keeps working.
Most videos are live within a day or two. We are volunteer run, so a busy week can stretch that. If yours has not appeared after a week, nudge us.
That is fine. The clip goes straight from this page to YouTube rather than through an email, so size is not the problem it used to be. Anything up to 2 GB is fine, which is far longer than any clip needs to be. On a slow connection a big file simply takes a while, so leave the page open and watch the bar.
Not publicly. Videos go up unlisted, which means they do not appear on our channel page and cannot be found by searching. They work for anyone with the link, which is how they reach this website, Petfinder and Adopt-a-Pet.
Send one email per animal. It sounds tedious, but it is the reason nothing gets filed against the wrong dog.
No. Volunteers, adopters, and anyone who has spent time with one of our animals is welcome to send something.
To us, so we can come back to you with a question. It is not published, not added to a mailing list, and not shared. See our privacy policy.
The animals who have been waiting longest are the ones a video helps most.
