By John T. Moore

St. Louis

Since the Open Door Animal Sanctuary doesn't limit the length of time their dogs or cats can stay at the shelter, the directors of the 25-year-old nonprofit are always looking for ways to increase animal adoptions.

So when an Internet company calling itself ThePuppyCam.Com offered to set up a camera inside the St. Louis shelter to show live streaming video of its animals over the Internet, Executive Director Ed Reggi jumped at the opportunity.

"We're sold on it completely," says Reggi. "When I heard about it I knew it would be successful."

Reggi's Sanctuary is just one of about 25 animal shelters across the country that participate in the initiative, which was started about eight months ago by the Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based company.

Since June 1999, ThePuppyCam.Com has been donating cameras and servers to animal shelters across the country so they can appear on the company web site, says CEO Jimmy Fanning.

The shelters set up the equipment to send video pictures of their pets to ThePuppyCam.Com Web site, where potential pet owners can go online to check out the available dogs or cats.

On the site, viewers will receive 10-20 frames per minute, depending on the type of modem they have, says Fanning.

The Web site is advertiser-driven, which means the shelters don't need to pay for the service, only the modem connection to use it.

"It's like Amazon.com for pets," says Reggi.

After donating their first system to a shelter in Miami, Fla., Fanning says the traffic was so great his company decided to develop a business model.

ThePuppyCam.Com sells advertising space on the site to national and local organizations. The local ads run in conjunction with the corresponding shelter in their cities.

Fanning says 25 percent of the advertising money goes back to the local shelters. The rest goes to pay for the cost of the service, which is about $5,000 for each camera installation.

The money is also used to expand the network, expected to have 400 shelters online within a year, Fanning says.

The sites traffic ranges from 50,000 and 60,000 hits per day, Fanning says.

Many of those visitors browse through the site's link to pertinent information about pets and pet care, which includes an "Ask the Expert" section. Fanning says ThePuppyCam.Com is currently expanding that part of the site to make it an all-encompassing source for people interested in learning about pets.

Reggi says there was virtually an overnight difference when Open Door Animal Sanctuary joined the program more than a month ago. Until now, the shelter has only shown its cageless cat environment, which is a "mock apartment for cats." A similar dog environment is under construction and Reggi hopes to have streaming video of that as well.

"We've increased our adoptions, our phone calls, our volunteer base, and I know we are going to increase our donor base," says Reggi.

From the Web site, Reggi adds, online viewers can also get background information about Open Door Animal Sanctuary and its mission of rehabilitating animals.

Reggi says the shelter is preparing to set up its own Web site, which will link people back to ThePuppyCam.Com site, and vice versa.

ThePuppyCam.Com's Fanning says that shelters like Open Door Animal Sanctuary will be able to include the live streaming video on their own sites as well.

John T. Moorecan be reached at
johntm@mindspring.com