Puppycam raises awareness for shelter dogs

Photo: Best Friends

Northern Arizona University college student, Morgan Sharman is streaming a live 24-hour video of eight foster puppies in her care. The puppycam is part of a project to bring attention to homeless pets and so far more than 36,000 people have tuned in.

Morgan came up with the idea after she became a fan of a similar website earlier this year that filmed a litter of puppies and their mother. She watched the puppies in their daily activities alongside several million other fans.

Morgan Sharman hopes to achieve three goals with her puppycam project:

1. Increase awareness about the importance of spay/neuter for pets. After all, the puppies she is fostering wouldn’t be homeless if there wasn’t an abundance of unwanted pets.
2. Call attention to the need for people to adopt homeless cats and dogs rather than purchasing them from breeders, pet stores and puppy mills.
3. Inform the public about no-kill rescue groups and shelters and their efforts to stop pet overpopulation.

Morgan selected two animal rescue groups to highlight through her project. She picked, Foundation for Animals in Risk (FAIR) in Tucson, AZ and Best Friends Animal Society.

“I’d like to see this program go national if not global,” says Sharman. “And to do that, I knew I had to work on a local level as well as on a country wide level. It’s why I chose Best Friends to increase awareness on a large scale.”

Sharman is also using the puppy cam as a fundraising tool. Donations will be split between the two rescue groups. At last count generous viewers had contributed more than $400.

The puppies on Ustream were dropped off at FAIR when they were just a few weeks old. The mother lived with a family that didn’t see the need to have her fixed. As a result, another 8 unwanted puppies were born and then surrendered to the rescue group.

Millions of unwanted companion animals are relinquished to shelters and rescue organizations every year. The majority are euthanized because there are just too many pets and not enough homes. The puppies in Sharman’s care were lucky because FAIR had enough resources to take them in and because the college student agreed to foster them.

Click Here To See The Puppy Cam

Source: Best Friends