LaNae Moline of Monroe was never really fond of dogs, by her own admission.

“I always considered myself a cat person,” she says. But during the eighth month of her pregnancy, she told her husband she wanted a Rottweiler (he had a Dalmatian). “He looked at me as though I had grown a third leg.”

Moline logged onto Petfinder.com, the largest and oldest virtual animal shelter. There she didn’t have just one Rottweiler to choose from. About 2,000 member shelters across the country post their pets on the web site regularly, and Rottweilers number in the hundreds.

There are approximately 32,000 homeless animals represented on the site.

Moline entered her search criteria, and a list of Rotties ranked in proximity to her zip code came back to her.

“The closest was in Monroe,” she said as she found three Rottweilers being sheltered at the Animal Adoption Network, Inc. She stopped in after work on a Saturday and asked about Evie, the dog whose picture she had focused on. When the person interviewing LaNae found out she had another dog, he recommended against Evie.

Instead, he brought out Mandarin, another Rottweiler, for her to meet.

“I instantly fell in love with him,” said Moline. “He was 70 pounds, one-and-a-half years old, and very well behaved. The following Wednesday, we brought our dog to the shelter to see if they two dogs would get along – and they did. We brought Mandarin home the following Saturday and renamed him Maximus, after the Russell Crowe character in the movie Gladiator.

Research suggests that dogs can relieve stress, lower blood pressure and reduce depression. Moline’s experience with her rescued dog adds another dimension to these positive claims.

“I went into labor while my husband was at work,” she said, “and I used Max as my Lamaze focal point to relax through the contractions. Max would sit beside me, and I would hug and pet him throughout the contraction – he never left my side. When my husband came home the next morning (he is a lieutenant in the fire department), we went to the doctor’s office. We had our son later that day. We joke that Max was my fill-in Lamaze coach. He is a wonderful dog! I think it was fate that we found him.”

Moline’s happy “tail” is just one of hundreds that the staff at Petfinder.com receives monthly. They estimate that the site facilitated half a million adoptions last year. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) has partnered with Petfinder.com to furnish national shelter outreach and valuable educational material for adopters on the site. It is free to adopters and shelters, thanks to sponsorship by the Ralston Purina Company and its commitment to animal welfare.

America On Line features Petfinder.com as its pet adoption link and Yahoo! automatically includes Petfinder pets on its classified pages. Forbes Magazine selected Petfinder as one of its 300 best web sites of the year, and Family PC Magazine ranked it in the top 100 family web sites.

Eight Connecticut shelters and rescue groups have recently joined 50 others in the state as members of Petfinder.com. Nationwide, the site has about 2,000 members and features descriptions and pictures of more than 33,000 pets.

New members include Canine Advocates of Newtown, Animals for Life of Middlebury, Pet Pals Northeast of Plainfield, Creature Kindness of Hamden, Nutmeg Golden Rescue, Ellington Animal Control, Cause for Paws of Durham, and Animals in Distress of Wilton.

Kate Jarest of Newtown saw a picture of her Rottweiler, Angel, on Petfinder.com and all it took was a trip to the Bridgeport animal shelter to pick up her new friend.

“She is full of love and very smart,” said Jarest. “Within eight months of bringing her home, she had completed a basic obedience class and passed the test for her Canine Good Citizen award. She is a true joy for us. Everyday she does something that makes us laugh and something that makes us so glad we brought her home.”

Betsy and Jared Saul came up with the idea of Petfinder.com on New Year’s Eve in 1995 as a resolution to do something about homeless animals. They were not active in the animal sheltering community, but had skills with computers and graphic design. Overriding that was a strong interest in animals.

At first, the site was limited to their home state of New Jersey and was simply a labor of love. The couple spent thousands of dollars and hours on the project and when they decided to take is national in August of 1998, they knew that would need a dedicated internet server – which would cost more money.

Betsy left her regular job and went about finding sponsors to make Petfinder.com self-supporting.

“We estimate that we facilitated hundreds of thousands of adoptions last year,” said Kim Saunders, director of shelter outreach at Petfinder. “But there’s so much more to be done. The ASPCA reports that 8 to 12 million animals are relinquished to shelters each year and the numbers are just staggering.”