Wringing your love life through today’s gauntlet of online dating apps is enough torture to resign any singleton to a weekend of Netflix purgatory. On the other hand, who says the paradox of choice has to be all bad? AllPaws.com and its founder Darrell Lerner are taking what they know about online dating and bringing it to the world of pet adoption with the All Paws App, a new way to quickly swipe through thousands of pets looking for new homes directly on your smartphone.
The app’s interface is similar to the Tinder landscape; you start by choosing the kind of pet you’re looking for—dogs, cats, rabbits, and other household furries are all included, but founding team member Kimberly Bouton was quick to tell us they don’t condone speciesism, so you’ll also find plenty of goats, pigs, and the occasional alpaca, depending on how close you live to a farm.
If you’re extra picky about what you’re looking for, the app also lets you choose all kinds of search parameters (breed, size, color, gender, age, special needs, temperament, etc.) as well as the maximum distance you’re willing to travel to meet your dream pet. If you find the one, you can pen a message to the shelter asking for an introduction, but don’t expect it to be as easy to broker as a Tinder meetup. All Paws handles the matchmaking, but you still need to go through the shelter’s application process before you can take the little guy home.
According to Lerner, the idea for the app came from a need to bridge the gap between busy shelters and the average walk-in customer. Most shelters harbor new pets every day and employ limited resources process them, so it’s not their fault that the marquis snapshots aren’t taken by professional photographers. Lerner tells us that taking shelter pictures is actually pretty similar to styling your own dating profile: outside shots are better than inside, try to smile as much as possible, and avoid cages and chain-link fences.
The app pulls together all 219,000+ animals in the AllPaws.com database that gets updated daily, so don’t worry if you end up swiping through all the pets available in your area—it’s completely possible that your new best friend is still taking the perfect pic.![]()
AllPaws.com and its founder Darrell Lerner are taking what they know about online dating and bringing it to the world of pet adoption with the “All Paws App,” a new way to quickly swipe through thousands of pets looking for new homes directly on your smartphone. ![]()
The All Paws app is similar to the Tinder landscape; you start by choosing the kind of pet you're looking for. ![]()
There are always a couple of surprises in the world of online "matching."
The app’s interface is similar to the Tinder landscape; you start by choosing the kind of pet you’re looking for—dogs, cats, rabbits, and other household furries are all included, but founding team member Kimberly Bouton was quick to tell us they don’t condone speciesism, so you’ll also find plenty of goats, pigs, and the occasional alpaca, depending on how close you live to a farm.
If you’re extra picky about what you’re looking for, the app also lets you choose all kinds of search parameters (breed, size, color, gender, age, special needs, temperament, etc.) as well as the maximum distance you’re willing to travel to meet your dream pet. If you find the one, you can pen a message to the shelter asking for an introduction, but don’t expect it to be as easy to broker as a Tinder meetup. All Paws handles the matchmaking, but you still need to go through the shelter’s application process before you can take the little guy home.
According to Lerner, the idea for the app came from a need to bridge the gap between busy shelters and the average walk-in customer. Most shelters harbor new pets every day and employ limited resources process them, so it’s not their fault that the marquis snapshots aren’t taken by professional photographers. Lerner tells us that taking shelter pictures is actually pretty similar to styling your own dating profile: outside shots are better than inside, try to smile as much as possible, and avoid cages and chain-link fences.
The app pulls together all 219,000+ animals in the AllPaws.com database that gets updated daily, so don’t worry if you end up swiping through all the pets available in your area—it’s completely possible that your new best friend is still taking the perfect pic.
AllPaws.com and its founder Darrell Lerner are taking what they know about online dating and bringing it to the world of pet adoption with the “All Paws App,” a new way to quickly swipe through thousands of pets looking for new homes directly on your smartphone. 
The All Paws app is similar to the Tinder landscape; you start by choosing the kind of pet you're looking for. 
There are always a couple of surprises in the world of online "matching."