Pets play role of four-legged cupids for animal lovers

On Valentine’s Day 2004, Melanie Taylor, a 38-year-old single attorney from Arlington, Va., heard about a singles party taking place that afternoon in nearby Washington, D.C., and immediately thought, “No way!”

However, upon further investigation, she discovered that she could bring, Mai Mai, her mom’s Shih Tzu, because the party was being hosted by Animal Attraction.com, a new online dating service for pet lovers.

“No way!” quickly turned into, “Hmm, maybe I can meet some guys who LOVE dogs instead of guys who ARE dogs.”

Now we’re approaching Valentine’s Day 2005, and just like last year, Taylor isn’t quite sure what she’ll be doing. However, unlike last year, she knows she’ll be spending it with someone special.

At the Animal Attraction.com party last year, Mai Mai ran into Cuki, a 7-year-old Rhodesian ridgeback mix who was attached to 33-year-old single male, Ted Hooban.

Hooban had posted a free personal profile on Animal Attraction and heard about the event through the site.

“I had corresponded with some great people on the site and figured the party would be a great place to meet some cool people in person,” Hooban said.

While Mai Mai and Cuki checked each other out, so did Melanie and Ted.

“Ted’s dog was so friendly and playful, with this big goofy grin, just like Ted! I could tell (Ted) was a nice guy by the way he handled his dog and how Mai Mai responded to him,” Taylor said.

Hooban replied, “I thought her dog was cute, but she was even cuter.”

After dating for about nine months, Melanie and Ted recently moved in together, They couldn’t be happier and are looking forward to spending a loving Valentine’s Day together.

Deborah Wood, author of “The Dog Lover’s Guide to Dating: Using Cold Noses to Find Warm Hearts” (Howell Book House, 2003), says Melanie’s attraction to Ted was predictable.

“People can see your gentle, warmer side when you’re with your dog, which they don’t necessarily see in other social situations,” she says.

People also perceive you as a kinder, nicer person just because you’re with a dog, Wood explains.

This type of success story is exactly what Dan Cohen, who has an M.B.A. from Kellogg Graduate School at Northwestern University, envisioned when he founded Animal Attraction.com.

About a year and a half ago, Cohen stumbled across a restaurant with a patio where people – and dogs – were all mixing and mingling. Cohen recalls being struck by the warmth and friendliness of the environment and how people were really connecting through their shared love for pets.

That week, some friends persuaded him to try an online dating service.

While initially very skeptical, Cohen gradually warmed up to the concept but found it hard to find a real connection with the masses of single people on general dating sites. Both Cohen’s M.B.A. mind and single heart wandered back to that patio, with all those pet lovers bonding so easily, and he thought, “Why not have a dating site for pet lovers?”

A sales and marketing professional from the professional sports industry (former vice president of sales for the Washington Redskins,) Cohen gathered some market research to confirm his gut on the potential for a pet lover’s dating site.

What he learned astonished him: 62 percent of all U.S. households have pets, and there are nearly 40 million single pet owners in the United States. Also, during the first half of 2004, 16 percent of all unique visitors to Web sites visited personals sites.

Personals/dating was the largest online paid-content category with approximately $450 million in 2004. Furthermore, 32 percent of the people surveyed in the past six months have met a friend or dated someone through an introduction on a personals site.

Thousands of people all across the United States, and many other countries as well, have joined Animal Attraction’s free service to find love, dates, or even friendship with other pet lovers, and the site is growing exponentially thanks to partnerships with large and well-respected organizations such as HSUS, Petfinder.com and VPI.

Wood isn’t surprised by the success of the Web site. She even has a chapter in her book about writing successful ads for online or newspaper classifieds.

Wood’s very funny but also practical book gives plenty of useful hints.

One gem: DON’T date anyone who names his dog after a weapon.

“Run, don’t walk to the nearest self-help book section if you find yourself attracted to a guy with Dobermans named Smith and Wesson,” says Wood.

Or, it’s cute for your dog to wear a bandana, but human-dog “mother-daughter” matching outfits are over the top.

“The Dog Lover’s Guide to Dating” also includes compatibility quizzes, places to meet single dog lovers, pickup lines, and ways to use your dog to help end a bad date.

No doubt we’ll be hearing more success stories from Animal Attraction.com and from people who read books such as “The Dog Lover’s Guide to Dating,” as pets are surefire social lubricants, conversation catalysts and laughter generators certain to attract pet-loving partners.

For attracting the ladies, dogs even trump “Donald Trump, The Cologne” this Valentine’s Day.