Rescue Retriever is a fully browser-based dashboard that combs Austin Animal Center shelter intake records and ranks every dog against three active search-and-rescue training programs. Each year, approximately 3.1 million dogs enter U.S. animal shelters, and between one and two percent carry the breed heritage, physical attributes, and behavioral drives associated with high performance in specialized rescue work — yet fewer than 0.1 percent are ever identified as candidates. Rescue Retriever closes that gap by running a transparent, reproducible scoring pipeline directly in the browser, putting ranked candidate lists in front of the shelter coordinators and rescue organization representatives who need them most.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/apursley2012/rescue-retriever/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
The Problem
Shelter staff operate under extraordinary pressure — underfunded, understaffed, and managing populations that cycle rapidly. The cognitive and logistical bandwidth required to cross-reference animal intake records against rescue program criteria is simply not available in most facilities. Each of the three programs supported by Rescue Retriever — Water Rescue, Mountain or Wilderness Rescue, and Disaster Rescue or Individual Tracking — maintains distinct breed lists, a preferred sex, and an acceptable age window. Without a dedicated tool, a coordinator would need to manually compare every incoming record against all three sets of criteria simultaneously. The result is that dogs perfectly suited for a Water Rescue or Disaster Rescue placement are adopted into pet homes, transferred to general rescues, or lost to the system entirely.How Rescue Retriever Helps
Rescue Retriever applies a consistent weighted scoring pipeline to every animal in the dataset and surfaces the results as a sortable, filterable table.| Criterion | Match points | No-match points |
|---|---|---|
| Breed match | 50 | 12 |
| Sex match | 25 | 5 |
| Age match | 25 | 5 |
| Total (capped) | 100 | — |
Rescue Retriever is fully static — every scoring calculation, filter operation, and CSV export runs entirely in your browser. There is no backend server, no database, and no login required.
Who It’s For
- Shelter coordinators looking to identify high-value placement opportunities before animals enter the general adoption pipeline
- Rescue organization representatives sourcing training candidates who meet specific program criteria for Water, Mountain, or Disaster programs
- Data analysts studying how shelter population characteristics — breed distribution, age ranges, geographic intake patterns — relate to rescue program eligibility
What’s Included
Dashboard
The main ranked table of all shelter animals, sortable by program score and filterable by program type, breed search, and strict-qualifier status.
Candidate Profiles
Per-animal detail pages showing the neutral shelter record alongside a full per-program score breakdown and per-criterion rationale.
Analytics
Breed distribution charts, age-range histograms, and a geolocation scatter plot that visualize candidate clustering across the Austin service area.
Reports
Summarized program-level counts and top-breed breakdowns for shelter leadership and rescue program coordinators.
Rescue Profiles
Detailed reference pages for each of the three programs — breed lists, preferred sex, age window, training duration, success rate, and operational environment.
CSV Export
One-click export of the currently visible candidate list, including a
rescue_programs column listing every program each animal qualifies for.