From animated to adopted: How an app is helping rescues find homes [Video]

MUSKEGON, Mich. — Imagine an app that takes real live dogs from shelters across the country, turns them into animated characters, and then delivers weekly products and funds to these shelters to benefit the dogs you see on your screens.

This app is real — and it’s called TREAT.

“You press play, and you pick out a dog,” Karly Anderson, head of social media at the Noah Project, said. “You can choose any dog that’s in our shelter. Once you find the dog that you want, you click on it, and it tells you to play, collect, and send.”

As you play on the TREAT app, you collect kibble to earn points. Once you collect 320 pieces of kibble “…it equates to a bag of food or a vaccine,” Anderson said.

Once or twice a week, dog treats, preventatives like heart worm and flea medications, vaccines, and funds for spay and neuter are sent to the Noah Project, the …