TORONTO — Two Canadian women have created an online resource for dog owners with lingering feelings of guilt over taking their beloved pets away from their furry siblings.
Wendy Margolis and Maria Ongaro of Ontario say R-U-MyLitter, which they launched last November, is the first website of its kind in the world.
The website enables dog owners to register their pets in hopes of matching them with their siblings.
“We went to get a dog and it was the hardest decision to pick from a litter,” explains Margolis, who bought Bentley, a Shorkie, for her daughter. She recalls looking back at the puppy’s three siblings as they took Bentley away. “It was an image we couldn’t get out of our minds. ‘Look what we did, we separated the dogs.'”
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Margolis and Ongaro decided to create a database to match dogs with their estranged family members. The site collects a dog’s breed, gender, birth date and breeder information as well as the name and email address of its owner.
If a match is found, the dog owners are notified by email. “We feel it is up to the owners how they want to proceed,” Margolis says. “They can exchange pictures or send information — all the way up to arrange a meet in a park.”
The women won’t reveal how many people have registered their dogs but they admit there have been no successful matches to date.
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“The more people who sign on, the higher the odds to connect to a sibling,” says Margolis. “High volume is definitely key to our success.”
Registering one’s dog is free so the women are counting on corporate sponsorship and a soon-to-launch marketplace to cover the costs of running the website.
Margolis believes there is a growing demand for the service R-U-MyLitter provides as more people put off having children and adopt pets.
According to Ongaro, who hopes to find the siblings of her dogs Snowflake and Diamond, response from pet owners has been encouraging.
“There are people out there that love the idea.”
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