New app and website helps more homeless pets find homes

Our pets do the cutest things. Unfortunately, it’s hard to get their attention to snap that quick photo on your smart phone. A new iPhone App – Pose A Pet – has hit the market that helps you get that perfect shot and share it on social media in a few simple steps.

Pose A Pet is a camera app that puts smiles on pet parents’ faces and helps save animals lives. It offers a variety of sounds to get your pet’s attention so you can snap the perfect photo and share it on social media. If your pet subject needs a home, the app also lets you create a catchy flyer with the pet’s photo and basic information to share on Facebook and Twitter. For even more exposure, share with Photos to the Rescue, a new website that aggregates all of the Pose A Pet fliers by state & region and allows people to sign up for daily updates in their area.

Jennifer Whaley of Fetch Portraits came up with the idea of creating the app because of her work with shelter animals. “Getting an animal’s attention for a photo is not easy. I realized early on that noises were the key, so I made a necklace full of noisemakers. It worked so well I still use the same one, 1,500 rescues later.” Of course, Jennifer can’t photograph every animal in need of a home, so the idea of the Pose A Pet app was born.

“If you can make your pet curious about your camera, they’ll look in the lens every time,” says Whaley. “There are so many pets needing homes – and too many blurry pictures trying to market them – a better picture would make a world of difference. There are many photographers that volunteer to help, but we could save so many more lives if any volunteer could take a better picture and share it.”

 Now, transporters, shelter workers, volunteers, and foster parents everywhere can easily take photos of an animal in need of a home (or just for fun). Pose A PetTM is available in a premium version for $1.99 or a free version. The premium version includes the following –

•     20 photographer tested sounds;
•     Create and save pictures and fliers to your camera roll for future use; and
  
•     and Share your photos logo free.

The free version has a sample of sounds, includes a Pose A Pet logo on your images and enables you to create and share photos and fliers on Facebook and Twitter. However, you are not able to save photos and flyers on the camera roll on the free version.

“Each year, millions of pets die for the simple reason that they do not have a home,” says Whaley. “Good pictures go a long way to help save the lives of these pets and move them out of high kill shelters or out of no kill shelters, which opens up space for more pets. Good technology, photos and networking will go a long way to change the statistics.”

Along with creating the Photos to the Rescue site, Whaley says they’ll be doing more to highlight rescues. Each month, a different rescue will be featured on the Blog for Photos to the Rescue. During July, the featured organization will be The Puppy Mill Project, an advocacy group that educates the public on the connection between puppy mills and the dogs sold in pet stores, on the Internet and in newspaper ads.

“I think the rescues will love this because they rely so much on social media to save lives and find homes for the animals in their care,” says Cari Meyers, founder of The Puppy Mill Project. “This is a brilliant way to give everyone access at the click of a button and is a win-win situation for everyone, especially the animals.”

When you purchase the premium version, you’re supporting work on future versions that promise to help the rescue community even more. “We’re really excited about the feedback we’ve been receiving. Version II is already in the works and Android will be released soon!”

Learn more about Pose A Pet and Photos to the Rescue by checking out their Websites. You may download the app at the Apple store.