dogs in the neighborhood

8/12/2019 Dogs in the Neighborhood

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Dogs in the NeighborhoodSubmitted to the Palo Alto Hackathon before

2/28/14 5pm PST by @PAHomelessDogs

Contact email: [email protected]| phone: 650 215-840

In green is from the Hackathon submission page.

In black is what we wrote.

Now, tell us about your awesome app idea...

Provide a short and snappy idea name. *For example: "Click and Fix" or "City Voice"

Dogs in the Neighborhood!

Describe your idea here *Tell us specifically what it will do and what problem it will solve. This is the most important area. Be sureto be clear and detailed.

Dog owners often enjoy getting their pets together to socialize at each othershomes, at a park, or on a walk orhike. Also, during work hours or when they travel, they might like an easy way to contact other dog owners toarrange for trading dog-walking or care-taking. The Dogs in the Neighborhood app allows dog owners toconnect in various ways.

The Dogs in the Neighborhood comes in two versions: A freemium bare-bones free version available to all, anda more robust premium version available only to those who have licensed their dogs with the Palo Alto AnimalServices shelter (for the towns of Palo Alto, Los Altos, and Los Altos Hills).

The premium version, which users initially gain access to by entering their dogslicense number, providesfunctionality for all of the following:

Create a profile of yourself and your dog(s) and any other companion animals, to share as you choosewith other users and social media.

Looking for others who also have a particular breed, to compare notes? Use the search feature to locateand contact owners.

Use the online forum to share information and link up with other dog owners who have similar petinterests and needs.

Want to trade dog-walking or pet-sitting with another owner? Use the search function or the forum tofind a match.

Planning a dog walk, training, or play session? Let people know; let them join in. Share your dog walk on social media. Optionally, and only when you choose to do so, share your location so friendly dogs and owners can join

you at the park or field.

And if you lose your dog or any other pet, use the special I Lost My Pet alert button that tells yourfriends and neighbors to be on the lookout, and that facilitates them informing you if they have asighting. (We may interface this to NextDoor)


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The free version, provides enough value to be worth using but operates to motivate users to license their dogsand gain access to the full benefits, offers the following:

First of all, on every app launch, the user will be politely spammed with dog licensing information andother selected information from the Palo Alto shelter, including pictures of adoptable animals. (Thelicensing information would be turned off for users whose dogs are already licensed but the adoptableanimals would appear for licensed dog owners too.)

The unlicensed user may anonymously optionally share their dog walk location with other app usersunlicensed or licensed. This brings value to unlicensed users on a daily basis to keep them engaged aswe move them toward licensing.

And the I Lost My Pet button will function, as well, bringing value and showing that we care about youand your dog even if you haven't quite decided to license yet.

The problem Dogs in the Neighborhood helps to solve is that of increasing the benefits of dog licensing to thelicensed dog owners while getting in front of the unlicensed dog owners on a regular basis to build arelationship with them and gently move them toward consideration of licensing.

Tell us why you think this is an original idea. *For example: Describe why you believe you are solving a problem in a unique manner.

Our app will address some important issues that affect both the city and many of its residents. The cities of PaloAlto, Los Altos, and Los Altos Hills have low compliance with the dog licensing law - our estimate, based on

information we found at the City of Palo Alto website - is that only approximately 20% of dogs are licensed.

Since dog license fees are an important source of revenue for the animal shelter, an increase in license fees

would bring in much needed additional resources on a regular basis. We believe that our app will be appealing

and useful to dog owners, and that it will provide an incentive for more owners to license their dogs.

It is possible to get to a very high compliance rate by using the positive rather than the punitive approach, for

example Calgary, Canada has a compliance rate of 90%!

Pet Licensing Programs That Work - Found Animals

http://www.foundanimals.org/search/content?query=calgary

City of Palo Alto Fiscal Year 2013 delivered $106K in dog licensing revenue. Imagine if that number were

doubled or tripled.

Our shelter currently uses only punishment; lets create somepositives!
http://www.foundanimals.org/search/content?query=calgaryhttp://www.foundanimals.org/search/content?query=calgaryhttp://www.foundanimals.org/search/content?query=calgary


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Our team is not aware of any other applications that provide this specific range of functionality. However there

are some related networking apps that we will research to consider whether we can leverage them or interfacewith them in our work, examples are NextDoor, FourSquare, DogVacay, and Wayze.

If your idea will require data, tell us what type of data.For example: City demographics, permit information, event listings etc. Leave this item blank if you

don't know or it's not relevant to your idea.

At a minimum we need access to a current and maintained list of paid dog license numbers. The names of thedogs would also help us populate our database and allow us to do a verification that the actual owner of the dogis using our app.

Finally, some important miscellaneous items...If you are selected as a finalist, tell us how you will go about creating a prototype *

For example: Will you write the code yourself? Do you have access to developers?We are a small team of people with a variety of skills including software development (internet, SaaS, mobile),project management, cloud/web product management, business analysis, photography, design, social media,animal welfare, and marketing.

One of us is a very experienced developer in mobile and web-based apps, another of us currently works as a

software engineering manager in a startup.

If we are selected as a finalist we may reach out to the open source community (viaGitHubfor example) to findadditional programmers. We know many techies (including ourselves of course!), are animal lovers and thatwe can bring in a few more engineers if needed.

Anything else?Use this space to include anything additional that you would like to share with the judges or competition

administratorsWe are learning more about the shelter and refining our thinking.

We appreciate OpenGov/OpenData which will ensure that we have access to important documents/data aboutthe shelter such as license compliance, revenue sources and amounts, euthanasia rates and reasons, etc.

This link is to a document folder on Dropboxhttps://www.dropbox.com/sh/wcfxdydvnflqqh6/cPFq9APuc2where we have placed the information that we have. We are eager to increase our knowledge of PAASoperations, financials, etc. so that we can work together to have better successful outcomes for our homelesscompanion animals.
https://github.com/https://github.com/https://github.com/https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wcfxdydvnflqqh6/cPFq9APuc2https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wcfxdydvnflqqh6/cPFq9APuc2https://github.com/


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dogs in the neighborhood

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