More animal shelters are turning to social media to find people to adopt their animals.
Maia Brusseau with the Dumb Friends League, an animal shelter located Denver, CO, says they dress up shelter dogs in cute outfits to lure people in and make a match.
"We reach adopters through a number of different ways,” Brusseau says. “We have a very active website that gets a lot of page views, over 457,000 page views in January alone."
Think of it more like a dating service.
"We always consider our customer care team, who works with people when they come into adopt a pet we consider them to be matchmakers," Brusseau says.
The ASPCA recently partnered with the dating app Bumble for a campaign called #FindYourFido to connect potential adopters with their dream dog.
There are even free apps now that you can download to aid an adoption.
The website Petfinder connects you with pets in your area. You can even search for animals of a specific breed, gender or size.
Similar to Petfinder, Barkbuddy is more like the Tinder for pets. It pairs humans with their perfect pet with the traits they are looking for in a dog or cat.
"I think it’s safe to say that technology has already changed the ways adoptions happen in animal shelters," Brusseau says.
There’s no data on how many pets have been adopted from these apps and campaigns, but most agree, it is changing the game for adoptions.
"It'll be really exciting to see what happens next and how technology will help things in the future to help pets find homes hopefully faster," Brusseau says.
