12 Smartphone Apps Every Animal Lover Should Have
1. Animal Help Now!
Animal Help Now! offers contact information for nearby emergency wildlife assistance across the United States. Enter the details of an accident involving wildlife, and the app will search a database of shelters, veterinarians and rehabilitators who might be able to help an animal in need.
Animal Help Now! is free on iTunes and Google Play.
2. Cruelty Cutter
Scan a bar code with the Beagle Freedom Project's Cruelty Cutter, and the app will tell you if the product was tested on animals.
Cruelty Cutter is $2.99 on iTunes and Google Play.
3. Bunny Free
Similar to Cruelty Cutter, the Bunny Free app offers information on companies' animal testing practices. Bunny Free lets users search data from PETA's shopping guide.
Want interesting factoids about whales and elephants at your fingertips? Want to see what it's like to perceive the world as a tiger? Want to make an origami panda? If you answered "Heck yes, I do!" to all of those questions, you seem like a cool person and we should hang sometime, and this app from the World Wildlife Fund is right up your animal-loving alley.
WWF Together is free on iTunes and Google Play.
5. Puppy Love On Tinder
The best feature of dating app Tinder is stumbling across adorable, adoptable puppies. (Stumbling across humans to love is OK or whatever.) The worst feature of Tinder is stumbling across bros posing with tigers.
Tinder is free on iTunes and Google Play.
6. Cat games(YouTube/camelsandfriends)
We may have created the app, but like many human technologies, cats have bent it to their will.
The app pictured above, Cat Fishing 2, is free on iTunes; Game for Cats, described as the first in "competitive video gaming for animals" in 2011, is free to download but costs $1.99 for the full version on iTunes.
7. Walk for a DogThe premise of WoofTrax's Walk for a Dog is simple: Walk a mile, and WoofTrax gives money to a local animal shelter. In its first six months, the app has donated a total of $10,000 to U.S. shelters, WoofTrax CEO Doug Hexter told the Huffington Post. The funds come from advertising and sponsorship, Hexter said, and earn shelters between 11 and 25 cents per mile.
Walk for a Dog is free on iTunes and Google Play. (This app is pretty young - less than a year old - and we've heard there are still some kinks to work out. But it's for such a good cause, we're hanging in there.)
8. ASPCA The app from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals lets you store your pet's medical records. It also tells you how to care for pets during disasters and lets you access templates for digital "Missing Pet" posters.
The ASPCA App is free on iTunes and Google Play.
9. Dog HealthThis app helps dog owners keep track of a dog's personal information, including vaccinations, vet appointments and a dog's weight and height.
Dog Health is free on Google Play.
10. Pet First Aid
Created by the Red Cross, the Pet First Aid app offers advice for "everyday emergency" situations for cats and dogs. (Keep in mind that no app is a substitute for a veterinarian - and the Pet First Aid includes a location service for nearby vet hospitals.)
Pet First Aid is $0.99 on iTunes and Google Play.
11. LiveSafe
The Animal Legal Defense Fund has partnered with LiveSafe to create an app to report instances of animal abuse and cruelty.
LiveSafe is free on iTunes and Google Play.
12. Bonus: The Dodo!
The Dodo app is available for free on iTunes and Google Play.
Have a favorite animal app? Let us know in the comments!