With over 200 million stray animals worldwide, the number keeps growing due to neglect, breeding, and minimum space in shelters. The problem with stray animals is that they cause traffic accidents, attack residents, and spread diseases. Rabies is a common disease in stray animals, with nearly 55,000 people worldwide dying from rabies every year. We need to figure out a problem to get stray animals off the street, but in order to do so, people need to realize the issues with breeding to reduce the number of strays in and out of shelters. It’s important for strays to stay in shelters, rescues, and get adopted in order to stay off the street, but to do that, we need to reduce breeding and advertise the importance of adoption.
I want to find out how I can reduce the growth of stray animals by creating an app that allows people to acknowledge stray animals in their area. The app will allow people to find open shelters, rescues, and foster homes so stray animals can be taken off the street. If a person does not have the time to help the stray animal, they will be able to take a photo of the stray, post the photo on the app with an address, and someone else will be able to take the stray.
Design can help solve the problem of getting stray animals off the street because it will be viewed as a call to action situation where anyone can help, even if it takes 5 seconds to take a photo and upload it to the app. Advertisement will play a big part in the design process to adopt out stray animals, which is why the app will also have an available dogs/cats section where those who wish to adopt a stray will be able to view the animal’s health and personality to see if the animal would do well in their home. I believe the app will solve the problem of helping to get stray animals off the street, because people will be able to locate and place animals in new homes or shelters, reducing the number of strays over time.