Gravity Forms
+ Pet Adoption & Foster Applications

Adoption enquiries usually arrive by e-mail, phone and social media all at once: nobody is sure which animal an application is for, two volunteers say yes to two families for the same dog, reference answers sit in one person's inbox and the people who were not chosen never hear back. The Gravity Forms Pet Adoption & Foster Applications add-on moves the whole process onto your own website. You list your animals with photos and honest details, and visitors browse them in a grid with filters for species, age, size and who they are good with.

Each animal's page has Apply to adopt and Apply to foster buttons that open your own Gravity Forms form filled in and locked to that animal, checked again on the server. Your team works through a pipeline board (New, References, Home visit, Approved) overall or per animal, sends reference requests to the referees named on the form through personal links, reads matching hints that compare the home with the animal, and keeps private notes.

Only one application per animal can be approved at a time: the animal goes on hold automatically, even when two people press Approve together, and Mark as adopted closes the other applications with a polite e-mail. Applicants can withdraw through a personal link, you can export a CSV, and public pages never show applicant data. For shelters, rescues and foster networks on Gravity Forms 2.9 and newer.

Animals are a WordPress post type with a details box; their age is stored as an estimated birth date so it stays current. The grid queries published animals by their details, with filters that work without JavaScript. The apply buttons open your application page with the animal in the address; the form fills in a hidden ID and a read-only name, and when the form is sent the add-on checks that the ID belongs to a published animal that takes that kind of application right now, and writes the animal's real name into the entry. Applications, referees, private notes and a per-animal hold live in the add-on's own tables. Approving reserves the animal with one conditional update on its hold row, so only one approval can succeed even under simultaneous clicks; the animal's status then changes to on hold, and placing it as adopted closes the other open applications with a polite e-mail. Reference and withdraw links carry signed tokens bound to one person and one purpose. Everything happens on your own server — the add-on makes no outside HTTP request beyond the licence and update checks.