# Animal Available Date

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**Where do I find it?**

The **Available Date** is one of the many animal fields that are available for each animal.  To set the Available Date, edit an animal and look for the field in the **Administrative Information** section.

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Available Date is an animal field that helps you control when an animal will be shown as available for adoption. Enter a date if the animal will not be available for adoption until a specific date. Depending on the animal Status you choose, one of the following will occur:

For **Website Service** organizations, if you select either the Available for Adoption or Available for Sponsorship Status, a message will appear on the animal's web page that he/she will not be available for adoption until the date you entered. In this case the animal will be visible to the public and a message about the animal not being available yet will be shown.

For all services, if you select Not Available as the status, the animal's status will **automatically** change to available on the day you entered for Available Date. This way the animal will not be visible to the public until he/she is available.


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Please note that the **Available Date** field should not be used to identify when an animal became available to your organization in the past. That type of information should be stored in the **Received Date** field. If you add a date for the Available Date field that is in the past, and also are using the Not Available status, the animal's status **will be automatically updated** to Available status the next time our system runs the Available Date process.

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