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Is there any resemblance?
My husband and I were matched with our dog. The shelter we used to find her required us to fill out a complicated adoption form. In it were not only questions about our living situation (own vs. rent, fenced-in yard, etc.) but also queries pertaining to what we wanted from a dog. Did we have any breed preferences, did we care if we had a male vs. female dog, and were there any deal-breakers in behavior from the dog?
Even though I didn’t have much to say on any of these questions, the rescue still managed to find us the perfect dog. Because we were renting they found us a smaller, beagle-sized dog that wouldn’t feel confined in our one-bedroom apartment. She didn’t yip all day long, which would have annoyed our same-building neighbors.
I searched many rescues for dogs before finding the one from which we adopted Chihiro. None except for that one put so much care into making sure we were matched with just the right pet.
Thus shelters exist that match dogs to potential owners’ lifestyles. What about ones that might set up owners with dogs that fit their looks, like that parade of canines and owners Pongo sees out of the window toward the beginning of “101 Dalmatians”? A new website based out of New Zealand now has you covered.
If you want to know what dog is best suited to you physically, then you should head over to doggelganger.co.nz. There you’ll be able to find your, well, canine “Doggelganger.”
The website works using photos of yourself that you upload or take right then using your webcam. Doggelganger scans the provided contours of your face and finds a homeless dog from its database whose features most match yours.
Obviously this “human to canine pairing software” isn’t perfect. If you visit the site multiple times and upload different pictures, you might find yourself matched with different dogs. I was both of the times I tried the website.
The whole thing is in good fun. Doggelganger has gained its online popularity owing to this, when in fact if you’re seriously looking for a dog matched to your face you ought to either live in New Zealand or be willing to fly out there to adopt.
Although it’s sponsored by Pedigree, an international pet food company, Doggelganger is a New Zealand-local website when it comes to serious adoptions. The only dogs in its database are from that country.
Doggelganger was never seriously meant to serve users outside of its home country. The fun face-matching software has garnered it international attention, but sadly if you’re looking for a dog that, well, looks like you and you’re not from New Zealand, then you might have to wait a bit longer.
If you’d just like to see what your doggelganger looks like, however, then the website’s a fun stop. Perhaps it will even help give you an idea of the sort of dog you’d like to adopt.
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