Animal Shelter in Germany Uses Tinder to Help Pets Find Their 'Purrfect Match'
Courtesy of Munich Animal Welfare Association
Anyone who's used Tinder before knows the value of a cute animal pic in a profile. I mean, how could you swipe left on that sweet face? One very creative animal shelter based in Munich, Germany took this idea and ran with it by creating Tinder profiles for pets ready to be adopted.
The Munich Animal Welfare Association hired a pro photographer to take photos of 15 adoption hopeful dogs and cats. They then built "dating" profiles for each pet that human Tinder users could swipe on. Once a match was made, a chat function takes over the conversation and invites the user to set up a "date" at the Munich animal shelter.
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And since the program launched on Aug. 8, it's already started to connect pets with their new BFFs! Jillian Moss, a representative from the shelter, told Reuters in an interview that the shelter has received numerous calls from potential adopters who saw the animals on Tinder. "The response is insane, it's exploding everywhere," he said. "This is something new, something creative which we definitely support."
The shelter shared an urgent message on Facebook about needing to get pets into stable homes after many animals were left behind during the pandemic. "Corona has made things worse," the shelter wrote in a Facebook post that's been translated from German to English.
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"We hope that these animals really find a new partner, a 'purrfect match' in the long term and not just for a few weeks," Benjamin Beilke, a Tinder communication coordinator, told Reuters. "There aren't only lonely souls among humans, but there are also a lot of lonely souls among animals."
So far, only potential adopters within a 50-mile radius of Munich can swipe right on furry friends through the app. We'll keep our fingers, er, paws crossed that animal shelters and rescues here in the U.S. catch on to this fun trend soon!
