Social networking, dating and mating portals enter even pets' lives.
The online world has gone to the dogs. And cats, and birds, and even horses! With social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace becoming increasingly popular, animal lovers are getting their pets active on the Internet as well. Even a few dog dating/mating websites have popped up and are getting a lot of interest from animal lovers. People have started blogging on behalf of their pets, with regular updates on their activities.
Take the case of Ishita Sukhadwala. She started the portal Dogmateonline.com to find a partner for her cousin’s six-year-old Doberman, Rocky. The website was born when Sukhadwala found finding a loving and caring partner for Rocky a difficult task. She had by then taken out matrimonial ads for Rocky on another website.
“There are a lot of pet lovers who want to find the right partners for their dogs, and we help them in doing that,” she says. In Rocky’s case, unfortunately, the website came too late for him — he passed away before finding a partner. In successful matchings, however, once consent is given by the pet owners, sometimes even a marriage ceremony is held at which family and friends gather to bless the new couple.
Dateyourpet.in is another portal with a similar purpose. Mumbai-based Mekhla Lobo started the portal because most of her dog-owning friends used to complain about not being able to find their dogs the right partners. It works like this: profiles are created by owners, describing how good-looking the dog is, what he/she likes to do, and what the candidate’s favourite chow is. For instance, a profile for Oscar, say, may read like this: “Oscar loves to eat, sleep and chill out. He hates flea markets and Frisbee is his favourite sport.”
But it’s not all about mating and dating. Many pet owners create profiles for their pets on Facebook. Tuffy Kamath is one socially active dog on the Internet. Tuffy’s favourite movies are Scent of a Bitch, starring Al Pooch-ino and the Dog-father Trilogy. No surprise that his favourite book is The Dog of Small Things!
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Tuffy is a golden retriever owned by Bangalore-based lawyer Nandan Kamath. Tuffy went to the Disobedience School. People are always seeking Tuffy out to get his paw-tograph! Due to his active social life, at last count Tuffy had over 100 Facebook “friends”, who keep inquiring about his welfare and also take advice from him on various pet-related issues.
Globally, this is a huge phenomenon. Once you browse through pet profiles you will see that people are more than keen to introduce their pets to the Internet. In the West, you will find cats are as popular as dogs. Even birds like parakeets have online profiles.
Petfacebook.com is another portal where one can logon to create profiles of their pets — be they cats, dogs or birds. It has over 10,000 members and is growing by the day. As Sukhdawala puts it, “It’s another great way to keep in touch with pet and animal lovers.”
Social networking has caught the fancy of some NGOs working for animal welfare and against cruelty to animals. Delhi-based Friendicoes SECA is one of them. They have created a Facebook page for their organisation and regularly post updates on pets which are up for adoption. The dogs for adoption are pedigreed as well as stray. The NGO urges people to adopt dogs and cats rather than buy them.
Aarti Verma, who works for Friendicoes, says that using online networking helps to create awareness about what they do as well as in finding good homes for the animals. “At the end of the day, we are looking for loving homes which can provide a good life to our furry friends,” she says. And social networking helps them to connect with other like-minded people who can help them in their endeavour.
Most of these sites are very careful about illegal breeding, as people have been known to kidnap pedigree dogs to breed them forcefully, as the demand for pedigreed dogs in the country has been rising. “It’s not strictly a commercial venture for me,” says Lobo. Registration is free on the sites, but once the process of meeting families starts, people take the effort to do background checks, just as in the case of humans. And why not? After all, a pet is part of your family.
The numbers are encouraging. Thousands of people have registered on these portals and even Friendicoes’ adoption rate from their Facebook page is close to 60 per cent. We know that finding a bride or groom or even a loving family in the case of humans is difficult, and businesses working in those areas are thriving. The task is more difficult in the case of four-legged creatures but, thanks to the Internet, it might just have become a little bit simpler.
Woof-woof to the online world!