AnimalsFirst Blog

How I Chose the Technology That Runs Animals First

glowens@animalsfirst.com (Gerald Owens) — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 17:18:50 GMT

One of the first decisions I had to make when building AnimalsFirst wasn't what features to include. It was deciding what kind of foundation I wanted to build them on. From the beginning, I knew one thing for certain: no two animal welfare organizations operate exactly alike.

Some organizations are open admission. Others are limited admission. Some operate large foster networks. Others focus heavily on animal control, community outreach, or pet licensing. Every organization develops processes that work best for its staff, volunteers, and community. Those processes also change over time as new programs are introduced and new challenges emerge.

I never wanted AnimalsFirst to be software that told organizations, "This is how you have to work." I wanted to build software that could adapt to the way you work. That decision influenced every technology choice I made.

As a developer, it's easy to focus on technical specifications, but technology is only valuable if it solves real-world problems. The foundation of AnimalsFirst needed to support incredibly complex relationships between animals, people, medical records, fosters, locations, cases, outcomes, documents, communications, and much more. Just as importantly, it needed the flexibility to grow alongside our customers instead of forcing them into a rigid structure every time they wanted to do something new.

That's why I chose MongoDB as the database behind AnimalsFirst.

While most people will never interact directly with a database, the choice of database affects almost everything you experience in the software. By using a flexible data model, we're able to introduce new features, support unique workflows, and expand the platform without constantly redesigning the underlying system. It gives us the ability to evolve the software as animal welfare evolves.

That flexibility has allowed AnimalsFirst to expand far beyond traditional shelter management. Today, the platform supports community programs, field services, foster management, mobile operations, pet licensing (through BarkPass), and many other capabilities that simply weren't part of the original vision years ago.

I also chose Amazon Web Services (AWS) to host AnimalsFirst.

For our customers, that means your software runs on the same cloud infrastructure trusted by organizations around the world. As your organization grows, or as we welcome more customers, we can increase capacity without asking you to purchase servers or worry about maintaining hardware. It also provides the security, backups, monitoring, and reliability that modern cloud software depends on.

Looking back, I'm incredibly happy with those decisions. The technology choices we made years ago continue to pay dividends today. They allow us to build new features faster, respond to customer feedback more quickly, strengthen security, improve performance, and support the unique ways our customers operate.

As a developer, that's ultimately what matters most to me. The technology itself isn't the goal. The goal is giving animal welfare organizations software that grows with them, adapts to their mission, and never limits what's possible.

Building AnimalsFirst, Together

szeidman@animalsfirst.com (Steve Zeidman) — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 22:53:37 GMT

One of the things that has stood out to me over the past several months is just how willing the animal welfare community is to help shape the future.

We've had the opportunity to meet with organizations of every size, from municipal shelters and humane societies to private rescues, and I'm incredibly grateful for the time so many teams have invested in evaluating AnimalsFirst. Whether you've spent 30 minutes with us or several hours digging into workflows, your feedback has been invaluable.

Every conversation reinforces something I've believed from the beginning: there isn't one "perfect" way to run an animal welfare organization. Every agency has unique processes, priorities, and challenges. Our goal has never been to force organizations to change how they work. It's to build software that's flexible enough to support the way you work.

The exciting part? We're getting incredibly close.

After dozens of demonstrations and countless conversations, we're seeing a clear pattern emerge. The core platform is meeting the vast majority of organizations' needs. More often than not, the feedback isn't about missing major functionality, it's about the final refinements. Small workflow improvements. Additional configuration options. Minor interface tweaks. Those are exactly the kinds of enhancements we love making because they have a real impact on the people using the system every day.

That's a great place to be.

It tells us we're not chasing an endless list of missing features. Instead, we're polishing a platform that is rapidly becoming a solution that can serve organizations across the animal welfare spectrum.

We're not finished yet, though.

If you've already met with us, thank you. Your ideas have directly influenced our roadmap and continue to make AnimalsFirst better for everyone.

If you haven't seen AnimalsFirst recently, or if you've never taken a look, we'd love the opportunity to show you what we've been building. A lot has changed, and we're continuing to move quickly. Even if you ultimately decide we're not the right fit today, your perspective helps us create a stronger product for the entire community.

I truly believe we're building something the industry has been waiting for.

For years, many organizations have been searching for a modern, cloud-based platform that can truly replace Chameleon while embracing today's technology, integrations, and user expectations. I believe AnimalsFirst is the first solution that's genuinely ready to do that.

But we don't want to make that claim alone.

We want the animal welfare community to help define what the next generation of shelter software should look like.

So if you're curious, have ideas, or simply want to see what we're working on, we'd love to connect. Schedule a demo, ask hard questions, challenge our assumptions, and tell us what would make your job easier. Book Time Here

The best software isn't built in isolation.

It's built together.

Feature Highlight: Animal Tags

slarrabee@animalsfirst.com (Sydney Robinson) — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 17:00:43 GMT

Every shelter has its own way of keeping track of the little details that make a big difference. Some information lives on kennel cards, some on whiteboards, and some in the minds of experienced staff. But when that information isn't stored in one consistent place, it's easy for important details to be overlooked.

That's where Animal Tags come in.

Animal Tags provide a simple, flexible way to organize the information your team relies on every day. Whether you're identifying treat-motivated dogs, volunteer favorites, foster animals, adoption event participants, or pets with special medical needs, tags make those details easy to find at a glance. Best of all, they're completely customizable, so your shelter can build a tagging system that fits your own workflow.

The real power of Animal Tags comes when they're combined with the In Care table. Staff can filter animals by tags alongside size, age, breed, and other criteria to quickly narrow the list of available pets. If an adopter is looking for a medium-sized, dog-friendly dog that's already housetrained, your team can find matching animals in seconds instead of searching through records or relying on memory.

Animal Tags don't just help organize information; they help your staff work smarter. By making important details visible and searchable, your team can spend less time tracking down information and more time creating great adoption experiences. It's a simple feature that improves daily workflows, supports better communication, and helps connect the right families with the right pets faster.

What It Means to Be a Developer-Owned Business

glowens@animalsfirst.com (Gerald Owens) — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 16:47:55 GMT

To me, being a developer-owned business means that the people making the decisions are also closely connected to the work required to turn those decisions into reality. I did not start Animals First simply as a business opportunity. I started it because I believed animal welfare organizations deserved better software, and I knew I could build technology that would make their work easier. As both the owner and a developer, I understand the system from the code and database all the way through to the shelter employee using it during a busy intake, adoption, medical treatment, or emergency.

Developer ownership also creates a different kind of accountability. When something is not working properly, I cannot distance myself from the problem or pass responsibility to another department. I understand the technical decisions behind the software, and I am personally invested in fixing problems and improving the product. Our clients are not just purchasing access to a platform. They are trusting us with the information and daily processes that help them care for animals, support adopters, and operate their organizations. I take that responsibility seriously.

It also means that our product is shaped by real conversations rather than only by sales goals or investor expectations. Many of our best ideas come directly from shelters and rescues explaining how they work, where they struggle, and what would make their jobs easier. Because I remain involved in both product development and client relationships, that feedback does not have to travel through several layers before reaching someone who can act on it. We can listen, understand the underlying problem, and build solutions that reflect how animal welfare organizations actually operate.

Being developer-owned allows us to think beyond the next quarter. We can make decisions based on the long-term health of the software, the needs of our clients, and the mission we support. Sometimes that means taking the time to strengthen security, improve performance, modernize our technology, or rebuild a process correctly instead of choosing the fastest temporary solution. It also means being honest about what we can do, what still needs improvement, and where we are headed.

Most importantly, being a developer-owned business keeps me connected to why Animals First exists. Technology should not create additional work for people who are already managing limited resources, difficult situations, and emotionally demanding responsibilities. It should remove obstacles and give them more time to focus on animals and their communities. For me, developer ownership means combining technical knowledge, personal responsibility, and a genuine commitment to building software that helps animal welfare organizations succeed.

Welcome to Connected AF

szeidman@animalsfirst.com (Steve Zeidman) — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 21:29:05 GMT

If you're wondering about the name, it reflects something we believe is essential to the future of animal welfare: connection.

Animals are connected to people. Shelters are connected to their communities. Technology is connected to outcomes. And the best ideas often come from connecting people with different experiences, perspectives, and expertise.

That's the purpose of this blog.

Connected AF will be a place where the AnimalsFirst team shares thoughts on animal welfare, technology, innovation, and the challenges/opportunities facing organizations today. Over time, we hope it becomes much more than that. We want to hear from shelter leaders, staff, volunteers, adopters, partners, and others who are passionate about improving outcomes for animals and the people who care for them.

Animal welfare is evolving rapidly. Expectations are changing. Technology is advancing. Resources remain limited. Organizations are being asked to do more than ever before.

There is no shortage of important conversations to have.

We'll be sharing ideas, lessons learned, industry observations, success stories, product updates, and occasionally challenging questions. We won't pretend to have all the answers, but we do believe that progress happens when people are willing to share what they've learned and listen to others doing the same.

In future posts, we'll explore trends shaping animal welfare, discuss the role technology can play in supporting organizations, share lessons learned from across the industry, and highlight people and programs making a difference every day.

Most importantly, we hope this becomes a place for meaningful conversation.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for your support. And thank you for everything you do for animals.

We're excited to continue the journey together.

Stay Connected AF.