Posted by Renee Schmidt

Doggelganger sits at the crossroads between technology and pet adoptive services; more specifically, dog adoptions.

Using face recognition software, The PEDIGREE Adoption Drive designed its Doggelganger software to do something totally unique: pair humans with canines that they could then potentially adopt!

I think that this approach to animal adoption is special and may be more effective than the norm for a few reasons. While you run through the program (all you have to do is submit a picture of yourself and then align it), you really feel like not only are you going to be getting a hand selected pooch (more like algorithm selected), but also that the face comparisons mean that this dog will in some ways be right for you.

Additionally, I love how after Doggelganger generates your doggy match you can go ahead and directly from the page find more information about the hound such as age, gender and name. This really personalizes the whole search process for those thinking of dog adoption.

So if you’re sick (like I am), of hearing Sarah McLachlan sing “Angel”, in animal cruelty commercials like the one below, you’ll find Doggelganger to be a welcome change.

Inevitably, people are using the software with no intention of actually adopting a dog but just to see what will happen. This doesn’t bother me as much as another possibility this software brings to the fold; using it for human adoption.

Would it be wrong in the future to rely on an aesthetic match program for people to adopt children?

I believe that forming a bond with someone goes straight to the core. While matching software may be nice because it gives us an easy way to approach people, we may be attracted to interacting with; it kind of misses the point.

But using Doggelganger as a way to get the conversation going on dog adoption is an excellent idea!

Photo Credit [via]