‘Muttbombing’ Photoshops Homeless Pups into Celebrity Selfies

One nonprofit animal rescue shelter has developed a fun and creative new strategy to promote animal adoption: photoshopping adoptable dogs into celebrity selfies. Dallas Pets Alive, the pet adoption center behind the project, call the tactic “Muttbombing.” The shelter has been working with a marketing agency to select fun photos of famous people like Kim Kardashian, Miley Cyrus, and Ryan Gosling, and insert images of pups looking for new homes.

“The selfie is undoubtedly a worldwide phenomenon that never got a social purpose until now,” said Dallas Pets Alive’s Executive Director, Leslie Sans. “We wanted a creative approach to reach more audiences. We are working with the creative team Dieste, who extensively research people every day finding trend-setters, bloggers, popular Instagram profiles and sometimes just random people with interesting profiles and selfies.”

Sans reports that feedback has been extremely positive, and that many people have submitted their own selfies for the privilege of being muttbombed. The initiative launched on Feb. 10, and boosted Dallas Pets Alive’s web traffic by 700 percent in the first week of muttbombing. Many pets have already been successfully adopted as a result of the campaign, but Dallas Pets Alive says there’s still a long way to go before its goal of a No-Kill Dallas is achieved.

“Several of the dogs have found their forever homes, but we want all of our muttbombers to get adopted,” Sans said. “There are still homes out there we need to find. Every home we find opens up a foster home so we can rescue another dog at risk… Rescue groups have to stay relevant so homeless pets can be adopted, muttbombing is an innovative way to make sure our dogs are visible.”

Fans of adorable animals and celebrity photos (and let’s face it, if you’re on the Internet, that’s probably you) can browse more muttbombs at muttbombing.com. Fans can even submit their friends’ Instagram pages to be muttbombed via the Muttbomb Machine. Happy Muttbombing!