If you're petless, there's a dog sharing service for you in Australia

There are many of us out there itching for a canine companion, but can't quite take it on due to work commitments, our tiny, inner-city living quarters or the fact we can't afford dog food. 

A dog sharing service in Australia is helping to fill the hole in petless people's hearts, although that wasn't the creators original intent. 

Jessica Thomas is the founder of Melbourne-based Dogshare, a website started in January 2015, originally intended for dog owners to find others to help with activities such as dog walking or hosting play dates. But it wasn't long before people without dogs wanted a slice of the action.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

"Surprisingly I've been inundated with requests to open up to non-dog owners, who are just falling over themselves to be able to take someone else's dog for a walk," Thomas said.

"When you think of the amount of paid services out there doing the same function, I think it's really incredible that people will literally volunteer, completely for free, out of their genuine love for dogs." 

Thomas said she began to get requests from people without dogs early on in the website's creation, admittedly thinking they were "crazy dog nuts" at first. She changed her tune when more and more fanatics signed up.

People without dogs have been able to sign themselves up to the service for a couple of weeks now, with about 50 people signing up in that period, Thomas said. Sign ups have swelled since the official launch on Thursday, with Thomas claiming she had received hundreds of emails from prospective borrowers by Friday. 

So far the site has a database of 2,000 dogs looking for friends. While borrowers can sign up as they wish, it's still up to the actual owners to decide who they share their dog with on the service. Although Thomas plans to implement a selection service soon, borrowers cannot yet browse through a list and and match themselves with a golden retriever or a schnauzer.

All we want is to search for a border collie to play frisbee with on the weekends. When that happens, sign us up.

[h/t Gizmodo]

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