This Animal Shelter is Now Using Pokémon Go to Help Lonely Dogs Get Walked

One animal shelter discovered that Pokémon Go isn’t just useful for getting outside to burning some calories.

The Muncie Animal Shelter in Indiana has come up with an ingenious way to use Pokémon Go. More people seem to be out and about these days catching Pokémon and the director at Muncie Animal Shelter believes they can kill two birds with one stone because of it.

Phil Peckinpaugh, the director of the shelter, recently put out an ad on Pokémon Go on the company’s Facebook page. The ad read:

Peckinpaugh said he started noticing many people hunting Pokémon around the city since the game’s release nearly a week ago. According to Buzzfeed, the director teamed up with an intern at the mayor’s office, Sam Wiser, to create the ad.

The ad was widely received by users on Facebook who shared it nearly 25,000 times. After the listing was posted, Muncie Animal Shelter reportedly had lines of people hoping to volunteer to walk the dogs.

The outpouring of support from children and adults was overwhelming. The director told Buzzfeed:

“Kids, they love it! There are people walking dogs [right now], posting pics on their Instagrams and social media. That exposure for the dogs is really quite epic.”

Peckinpaugh continued:

“The exercise and stimulation for the dogs is the first priority. If we can get volunteers and adoptions, that’s been the number one goal. Always.”

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