GladPet, animal aid project development

"Ginger was playing with a ball of yarn. He's already 8 months old, lively and healthy.

Three months ago Ginger was dying inside a garbage container in a shoebox. He was thrown away because he became unwanted by the people he once considered his owners. A homeless man looking for bottles heard his rustling and placed the box next to the container.

People who couldn't pass by took Ginger to a veterinary clinic. They arranged temporary placement with one of the city's shelters. After a month at the shelter, new people found him and took him to a loving family.

Ginger plays with a ball of yarn. He's lively, healthy and loved."

This isn't entirely a fictional story. There are hundreds like it in Odesa. And the Gladpet project was created to reduce such stories to zero.

GladPet — is an online service gladpet.org for adoption and helping homeless animals in Odesa and Odesa region. After testing the model, we want to scale it to other cities in the country.

Mission: humane treatment of animals by society.

Project goal: every pet has a loving owner.

What do we want?

- accelerate adoption process: homeless animal — shelter or volunteer — caring owner;
- civilize attitude toward animals;
- work systematically with causes, not consequences.

What's already done?

Project launched October 4, 2016. Main achievements:

- 245 pets adopted through the resource;
- counting homeless animals, jointly with animal-id.info;
- Facebook page with 2800 active users.

1. Adoption of homeless cats and dogs with no one to care for them.

2. Lack of coordination for many proactive people wanting to help homeless animals.

3. Helping existing animal shelters.

4. Lack of civilized attitude toward animals.

5. Lack of legal framework for animal rights protection and keeping rules.

Main tool for solving the problem is the online resource Gladpet.org which allows you to:

- choose a pet from city shelters;

- sponsor a pet if you can't take it home yet;

- post ads about finding owners or lost pets;

- provide any help to existing shelters;

- order delivery of necessary animal supplies from shelter wishlists;

- provide "targeted help" to any chosen pet. For example, give them a toy or treat with photo/video proof that the chosen pet received it;

- register a pet in the official international animal registry animal-id.info for free;

- find veterinary clinics for free or discounted animal sterilization and first aid;

- find official, active animal protection organizations;

- find dog clubs participating in homeless animal protection programs;

- accelerate shelter animal adoption into families;

- change citizens' mindset from "buy an animal" to "adopt from shelter";

- inform city residents how everyone can fight homeless animal problems through civilized methods.