Petworking websites can find loving homes for animals in need. [bbernard / Shutterstock.com]
Opening your home to a pet can be a formative experience for parents and children alike. Raising a pet teaches responsibility, kindness and compassion for another living creature. Besides being adorable, pets give back to humans, and the internet is awash with moving videos of animals performing heroic acts and scientific studies of dogs and cats using their power of cute to physically and emotionally heal.
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For the pet lovers out there, the special bond between you and your furry friend is something that only someone who owns a pet can truly understand. Happily, the surge of social networking sites has created a wave of petworking sites, on which fellow pet owners can connect. The pet-dominated social networking trend is in fact so popular that one in ten of all UK pets have their own Facebook page, Twitter account or YouTube channel.
So connect with other fellow pet lovers by getting to know these five petworking platforms that will allow you to share tips, advocate for animals, find a home for a pet in need and perhaps make some new friends – both human and animal.
1. SHELTER ME
This social network has one mission, to help shelter animals get adopted and find a loving home. Users or animal care facilities can create profiles of shelter pets with photos, videos and detailed descriptions. According to this Huffington Post item, since its inception in 2003, Shelter Me has hosted more than 10,000 shelter pet profiles with a success rate of 85% of those adopted or moved into an animal rescue location.
2. DOGGYBNB
A take off on the well-known collaborative consumption site Airbnb, DoggyBnB works in a similar fashion, just with furry guests. The free iPhone app is a social network for pet care, allowing people to get a bit of help once in awhile from trusted friends that can care for their dog. Users send out a WOOF to their network, detailing their request for assistance and even provide a reward for those who answer the call.
3. CUTENESS INC
4. DOGSTER
Known as one of the most popular pet-based social networks, Dogster definitely lets the dogs out. The site is a place to get canine advice as well as browse through their adoption section that features sweet pups looking for a loving home. Dogster has a sister site Catster that shares the exact same layout - minus the dogs and plus the cats.
