Thiruvananthapuram: Scooby, a purebred 2.5-year-old Boxer female with soulful eyes and lovely beauty seeks a perfect mate. A charming labrador retriever and a good companion looks for a partner. The lines are catchy, the photographs are charming, and the pitch gets even too personal; 'an adorable Lhasa Apso named Bee who is a bit too protective of me' vouches an owner on the website Vetigo to identify mating partners for pets launched by Dr Abin Joy, a BVSc & AH student at Kerala veterinary and animal sciences university, Mannuthy.
Abin, who is doing his internship at the University has always loved website development and coding. A self-trained programmer, he has earlier developed another site for dairy farmers. The idea of a website to identify mating partners for dogs and cats sprang from his wish to standardize the breeding programme. ''Initially, we have kept it open for dogs, very soon the site will be available for cats also. There are stringent rules regarding the breeding of pets. The site is being designed in such a way that any kind of incompatible proposals will be rejected. This will help standardize the programme,'' says Abin Joy.
He received funding for the project as part of the Young Innovators programme of the Kerala Development and Innovation Strategic Council. The project is incubated under the Technology Business Incubation Centre, KVASU and Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode. The site allows the owners to post personalized lines about their pets, beautiful photographs, and videos and it also displays the vaccination history of the animal. A foreign touch always ensures desired results on matrimony sites and it is no different here. A boxer is introduced with an appealing description topped by the line 'His parents are from the US'.
''I have a base in Java programming. I have been working on this site for a year. We also plan to launch a database of vets based on location thus enabling online and direct consultation. The site already has a provision for vet consultation,'' says Abin, a resident of Malayattoor. He says this is a first-of-its-kind initiative in Kerala.
