2013 Dog with a Blog Elizabeth Crowe HON 113 10/5/2013
Elizabeth Crowe HON 113 Business Proposal Fall 2013 Dog with a Blog Increasing Adoption Rates at the Smithtown Animal Shelter Dog with a Blog is an add-on to a pre-existing program that aims to increase adoption rates at the Smithtown Animal Shelter by increasing student involvement in the community. Through the implementation of this program, not only will the dogs at the Smithtown Animal Shelter have a greater likelihood of being adopted, but also allows stressed students at Stony Brook University to have the opportunity to engage in an activity that will reduce their stress and give back to the community. This proposal illustrates the problems associated with the current program, how Dog with a Blog will effectively remedy this problem, and the projected costs of Dog with a Blog. The proposal will then conclude with measurement tools for success and the future direction of this program. Information Technology is often associated with helping humanity; however, Dog with a Blog uses this technology to assist the canine community. According to the Humane Society About 2.7 million healthy, adoptable cats and dogs about one every 11 seconds are put down in U.S. shelters each year (Humane Society, 2013). These animals are euthanized because there are not enough shelters for animals the volume of animals out there. Chihuahuas, Pit bulls, large black dogs, and older dogs have the most difficult time getting adopted because many adopters are prejudiced against getting such a dog due to either media coverage or ingrained stereotypes (O Connor). Dog with a Blog can help dispel stereotypes by allowing potential adopters to see on an individual basis the real personalities of these pets.
By increasing awareness of alternatives to purchasing puppies from puppy mills, Dog with a Blog can help reduce the demand for such industries and increase the adoption rates for healthier dogs at a cheaper price to those seeking a canine companion. A dog at a pet shop after all is said and done can cost anywhere from $300 to $1300. However according to the Animal Rescue Corps, There are an estimated 15,000 puppy mills in the U.S. alone. In these mass-production factories, dogs are forced to produce litter after litter of puppies, supplying nearly 100 percent of the dogs sold in pet stores and directly to consumers online and through newspaper ads. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of dogs per facility live in overcrowded and unsanitary cages without sufficient food, water, grooming, socialization, or veterinary care and therefore they frequently suffer a multitude of social, emotional, and physical conditions, including genetic disorders and deformities (Animal Rescue Corps). This means that that lovable puppy in the window was maltreated, sick, and may have genetic deformities that make it less desirable than the shelter dog. Many puppy mill dogs are separated from their mothers too soon and due to these intolerable conditions, unsuspecting consumers are often buying sick puppies and will incur expensive veterinary bills trying to treat immediate health problems, such as parvovirus or genetic problems that reveal themselves years later (Animal Rescue Corps). By increasing awareness of the adoptability of shelter dogs, people would save more money in the long term and discourage puppy mills from continuing their current practices. The current program at the Smithtown animal shelter is a very good program with good intentions. The idea of taking semi-professional portrait shots of the animals up for adoption increased adoption rates dramatically at the shelter. They removed the cages from the images and used pictures that made the animals look more appealing and friendlier. The shelter then took things one step further and is now working with Stony Brook University to have stressed out students visit the dogs. Doing so will have many positive implications. The first consequence is that students will have the opportunity to reach out to the community and increase community awareness of the shelter. The more students talk
about the shelter and the dogs there, the more likely it is that more people will want to get involved. The other consequence is that the dogs will have more people to play with. The dogs will be exposed to more people who will walk them, play with them outside, and maybe assist in some general maintenance. The dogs will be healthier and have better social skills around people and other dogs as they will also have more opportunities to play with each other as well. While the program is very good, it could use some improvement on the information technology side of things. The shelter uses Petfinder, a third party server to post images of the dogs for adoption and on the main site has a spot called Shelter Pet of the Week. Petfinder is great because it is easier to find through a Google search, but it is also the home of 376,139 adoptable pets from 13,766 adoption groups (Pet Adoption). That is a lot of competition for the dogs at the Smithtown Animal Shelter and a lot of clutter for those looking to adopt. While it is true that the pictures are more appealing now, the individuals posting the images have made the mistake of cluttering the images as seen here: Figure 1. Cluttered image of dog for adoption via Petfinder.com (Pet Adoption) There is a description of Autumn s personality; and Autumn looks like a happy and fun looking dog, but the collage set up is very overwhelming and not appealing to the eye. The following image is
aesthetically pleasing with no clutter, but it lacks a meaningful description that would in fact turn people off because they would see the phrase Pit bull : Figure 2. Image of a Terrier and Pit Bull Terrier Mix from Petfinder.com (Pet Adoption). Shelter Pet of the Week was a nice idea because it is directly on the website, but the picture tends to very busy, much like figure 1. Furthermore, there is only one dog on the site. It would be more beneficial to blend the two in such a way that would appeal to this generation on a technological level. Dog with a Blog is an add-on to the pre-existing program that will accentuate its strengths and remedy its weaknesses. The first thing Dog with a Blog does it that it removes the 3 rd party server and gives the dogs their own spot on the Smithtown website. Dog with a Blog will be formatted to look and feel like a social media site such as Facebook. This will be beneficial because students are already familiar with the idea of posting statuses and blogs, and posting a dog blog about the dog s quirks and behaviors will come as second nature. Furthermore, students will feel good about supporting the local community by helping these dogs be adopted. Potential adopters are also more familiar with reading statuses and blogs, and they may be more inclined to adopt a dog if they can see a continually updated description of the dog s personality that is substantiated with examples of how the dog is friendly or energetic. Below is the use case for how Dog with a Blog would operate:
Mrs. Smith Wants a Dog SBU student, Jenna, is stressed Mrs. Smith Hopefully Does Some Research Jenna hears from friend, Josh, about Dog With a Blog Mrs. Smith Goes online to the Smithtown Animal Shelter to Adopt a dog Jenna goes with friend to meet the dogs Mrs Smith sees image of a friendly dog with a vignele of the dog s personality Jenna plays with Farrah and sees that she s really great with other dogs Mrs. Smith sees that Farrah would be compaoble with his/her dog, Chip Jenna posts on the dog s blog that Farrah really loves to play fetch with the other dogs Mrs. Smith Decides to visit Farrah at the animal Shelter Jenna remembers to come back because they posted the blog Mrs. Smith adopts Farrah Jenna feels good about helping Farrah get adopted, and can t wait to play with Luke next Cme. She also tells her friend about this posicve experience. The person in this use case Mrs. Smith of Smithtown, NY. She is in her 40 s, married and has a terrier named Chip who likes other dogs. Mrs. Smith leads an active life and enjoys taking Chip on long walks. Mrs. Smith wants another dog to keep Chip company. She decides to do her research and try the Smithtown animal shelter website. The student in this use case is Jenna, the stressed out student. She is 19 years old, majoring in Engineering, and misses her own dog Scruffy, who is back home in Iowa. Jenna saw her friend John posting dog blogs on his laptop. John tells her about the program and she decides to go with him this weekend. Jenna will meet Farrah and see that she loves to play fetch and play with the other dogs. Like Josh, Jenna will also post these dog blogs on the shelter s site. Mrs. Smith will still see that same picture of Farrah and that she is part pit bull terrier, but she will also see
Jenna s postings about how friendly Farrah is with the other dogs. Mrs. Smith thinks that Farrah might be compatible with her dog, Chip and visits the animal shelter. Mrs. Smith sees for herself that Farrah would be a good fit for her family and decides to adopt her. Jenna will remember to come back not only because of the email from Farrah, but will also remember because she wrote the blog. After Farrah is adopted, Jenna will feel good about helping Farrah find a good family, and will be excited to spend some time with Luke the Maltese next time. Jenna may also tell her friends about this positive experience. Dog with a Blog should have a format that will have a look and feel similar to that of a social media web site and will be located directly on the Smithtown Shelter s site. In an attempt to alleviate clutter, the formatting for Dog with a Blog may look like this: See more Figure 3. Proposed formatting for Dog with a Blog. The most important aspect of this function is that the site looks clutter free so that those looking to adopt do not feel overwhelmed. There will be multiple dogs on the site, so viewers will only see the latest post unless they click on the link that says, See more posts. Over the long term, the cost of implementing Dog with a Blog will be minimal, if not cheaper than the current means of promoting these dogs on the web. The biggest hurdles in the beginning will be posting all of the pictures of the dogs waiting to be adopted to the Smithtown Shelter website and
then setting up the website to accommodate the posting function. Hiring a professional for this purpose will cost some money, but will be a one-time fee. Additionally, there is the cost of maintaining the site, which can also vary. However, this cost can be dramatically reduced by asking a student of the University to volunteer his or her time to the project. As far as time is concerned, implementation will only take a few weeks at most once the program with the University gets going. Fortunately, with a program of this nature, the risks are low. The two biggest risks are students posting damaging comments on the site about the program and students becoming emotionally attached to a particular dog. While there are always trolls on the internet, it is not very likely that the students that ask to join this program will try to damage it because the program is meant to be a fun way to reduce their stress. While it is easy to become emotionally attached to the dogs, reminding students that these dogs need to find good homes should help put things into perspective. Additionally, there are many dogs to go around for the students. Finally, a student can always opt to adopt the dog once he or she moves off campus. If this program proves to be successful, we can further increase the impact of this program by sharing it with other shelters near college campuses. The most efficient way to test the program s success rate would be to use random assignment so that half the dogs go to the blog condition and the half to the non-blog condition. Using the coin toss method will do a decent job of homogenizing the groups. Even if there are older dogs, black dogs, Pit bulls, or Chihuahuas in the groups, statistically speaking, those types of differences will be equally distributed between the two groups. We can look at the adoption rates for the two groups, and if there is a statistically significant result, then we will know it works, and then implement the program for the entire shelter. In other words, many more dogs are adopted because they were in the blog condition, then we should implement the program for the entire shelter. The dogs in the control group will still play with the students, but students will not write blogs for those dogs, so that no dog misses the benefit of interacting with the students. Sharing these results with other shelters can convince them to adopt these ideas.
The purpose of Dog with a Blog is to improve a good program so that a better program in its entirety can be shared with other shelters near college campuses. It will take some time to achieve this goal, but in the end, it stands to benefit both humanity and the canine community. People will need to spend fewer resources on managing the homeless animal problem, healthcare problems associated with the poor conditions of puppy mills, and devote those additional resources to other needs in the community. The canine community will experience better living conditions in shelters as populations decrease, face smaller counts of euthanization due to overcrowding, and ideally see less puppy mills in the future.
References Animal Rescue Corps. "Puppy Mills Animal Rescue Corps." Animal Rescue Corps. ARC, 2013. Web. 05 Oct. 2013. The Humane Society of the United States. "Pet Overpopulation : The Humane Society of the United States." RSS. The Humane Society of the United States, 2013. Web. 05 Oct. 2013. O'Connor, Rebecca. "Dogs Least Likely to Be Adopted." Nat Geo TV Blogs. National Geographic, 12 Mar. 2013. Web. 05 Oct. 2013. "Pet Adoption: Want a Dog or Cat? Adopt a Pet on Petfinder." Petfinder Homepage 0929 Cat Myth Fcs Comments. Petfinder, 2013. Web. 05 Oct. 2013.