Dogstuff has always helped raise money for rescue, but Rescue First is a way of making assistance to rescue a full-time part of our business.

	Rescue First Overview
	Frequently Asked Questions
	Get More Rescue First Money for Your Rescue
	Signup Form

The principle is simple - every purchase from dogstuff.com creates a contribution for rescue. Participating rescues receive a commission ranging from three percent to seven percent of each purchase, depending upon how actively they’ve chosen to participate.

Customers can pick a rescue to support from among our listed groups or suggest a favorite rescue to add to the list. If they don’t choose a rescue, a commission from their purchase goes to our featured rescue, a different one every day.

There is no extra cost to the customer, and none to the rescue organizations - the contribution comes right off the top of our revenue for each sale.

Rescue. First. Simple, yes?

So from now on, if you buy anything from the Dogstuff website, we can happily say to you, “Thank you for being our customer and for supporting rescue.”

(Current rescues, listed by their state, regional or national activity, are here and a full alphabetical listing is here)

1. What does my rescue need to become a member of Rescue First?
Nothing! Except the desire to be a Rescue First member.

You don't even need a website (although having your own website helps). You can promote Dogstuff.com via search engines, postings in internet forums, or simply email to all your volunteers, adopters and people you know with your special link to Dogstuff.com.

2. How do I know my rescue will be paid for the referral?
Rescue First uses combination of cookies and visitor IP addresses to track referrals. When the visitor follows your link to our site, the Rescue First tracking system registers the referral and places a cookie on his or her computer. When the visitor completes a purchase, Rescue First checks for cookie (if not found, it checks for the IP address of the referral) and credits your organization's account five to seven percent of the purchase value.
This process is absolutely automatic. All your referrals will be properly tracked.

3. How is the payment handled?
You can choose if you want to be paid by PayPal or by check, as well as the minimum payout value. Payments are issued in US dollars.

4. How do I set up a Rescue First account?
Setting up an account is very easy and completely FREE. You don't have to pay to become a participant in Rescue First.

All you need to sign up go to the Signup Form below and fill it out. After we approve your application, you will receive an email with your password and other information.

As a Rescue First participant, you will have your own control panel where you can see detailed statistics of traffic and sales you referred, and a choice of banners and text links that you can use on your site.

Then you only need to place an affiliate link, banner, text link or other link on your web site to increase your commissions from three to five percent.

5. What is the link that I need to add to my rescue web site?
You will have a special URL where you should be sending visitors. You will get the URL's for different banners in your Rescue First panel after log in.

6. How customers choose to have their purchases benefit my rescue organization?
Vistitors to the Dogstuff.com site will be able to choose your rescue from our Rescue First Directory. When they choose your rescue a cookie will be set on their computer. This will automatically tell our shopping cart that your rescue should receive the donations generated by any orders they place.

7. What must I do NOW?
A few simple steps:
1. Go to the Signup Form
2. Fill out the form
3. Receive your password and other info by email
4. Log in to your own Rescue First panel and choose from various banners and text links.
5. Place some of these banners/links on your rescue website, and as many other pages as you want, to increase your sales.
6. Receive a five to seven percent commission from every sale!

Any questions? Contact us here.
We will be more than happy to help!

After sign up you will be able to log in to your Rescue First member control panel, where you'll get access to links and banners that can be used on your Rescue site.

Some rescues get significantly more than the average Rescue First benefit, just by asking their supporters to use the link on their rescue website before shopping at Dogstuff. Having a link to Dogstuff also increases the rate at which they earn commissions - from three percent of all purchases made in their name to five or seven percent.

We’re trying to spread the donations around, but we figure that those who participate most actively help make it possible for Rescue First to provide donations to all participants,  so we recognize the active rescues with a higher commission.

Even rescue groups on our list who do nothing get benefits though - they earn three percent commissions from purchases when their supporters choose them from our Rescue First directory.

How to increase your commission from 5% to 7%

Some Rescue First participating organizations add "Dogstuff.com Mini-Stores" to their web sites. A mini-store is easy to set up, because we provide it for you! Simply let us know you want a customized mini-store, and we'll take care of creating a breed-specific page that you can add to your site. Although the page will be on your site, our mini-store pages will be automatically updated for you, using RSS (Really Simple Syndication).