American Pet Association
The name you know you can trust!

Product, Service and Facility Approval

 


What do our higher ethics mean to you?

The American Pet Association is an organization dedicated to the companion animal and their owners. We extend our support to the humane agencies and pet businesses that support and work with companion animals.

While we applaud the organizations that fight animal cruelty on a wide scale, and help provide spay and neuters, our concern is the backyards and living rooms of American homes.

Everything the APA does is with the best interest of:

  1. Companion Animals
  2. Pet Owners
  3. Pet Businesses
  4. Our Communities
  5. APA Employees

The APA has the highest ethics in the pet industry, possibly in any industry.  But what does this really mean to you?

  1. The most easily recognizable benefit is that when you visit our web sites you are not bombarded by ads and confusing cross promotions. You are here for a specific reason and ads serve only to confuse and complicate web sites.
  2. Everything we publish and say is true. That may seem simple, but you would be amazed how many lies and exaggerations are made by even trusted companies and organizations. The APA does not mislead or exaggerate.
  3. We do not accept fees for our endorsement as many organizations do. When we approve a business or product, the fee covers the approval process and the approval is not guaranteed.  If the approval is not granted, we do not offer a refund. Why? If we had to offer a refund we would be more apt to pass a questionable approval so as to not have the financial loss.  That is not fair to anyone. Instead of a refund, we offer advice so that the approval could be granted and allow the business to go through the process a second time at no charge. Everyone wins.
  4. Most Importantly, by not accepting corporate donations, sponsorship, or ads and not aligning ourselves with other organizations we remain uninfluenced. That is very, very important. Lets say we were to accept thousands of dollars a month to advertise a pet food at our site. If a new pet food came on the market that we wanted pet owners to know about, we would have to risk losing that income to do so. If a business accepts advertising, donations, or joint promotions it is impossible they could remain unbiased and some of their decisions may not be in your best interest.
  5. We do not approve products in return for "a percentage of every sale donated to the APA". Again, tying finances to endorsements is fundamentally a bad idea. How do you give an honest endorsement of a product if they have promised you hundreds of thousands of dollars? It is difficult if not impossible to have an unbiased relationship when donations are involved.
  6. The APA is self reliant. By not over spending, maintain humble offices, using technology when necessary, not for the sake of using it (do you really need to follow the APA on Twitter???), offering programs with real world value and quality service we are able to charge fair prices, pay our employees a fair wage (above scale), and remain debt free. Consumers never have to pay for our greed or bad decisions.

We are not activists.

There are many pet organizations that we love and some we are not so found of, but we can keep that to ourselves and let you make your decision who to support and not. We spend our time making sure we complete OUR mission and that we are worthy of your support; that gives us plenty to do.