I found an interesting website today dedicated to the goal of finding families for homeless dogs by using its unique “human to canine pairing software.” Essentially, the idea is to find your canine doppelganger (a dog that looks like you). Of course, the experience wouldn’t be complete without a clever name…

Doggelganger — Human to canine pairing software. It sounds slightly suggestive.

Doggelganger is a Flash-based site that scans an image of your face, analyzes different sections of it, and then matches it to a database of homeless dog photos. The closest match is a dog that the Doggelganger software thinks looks like you. Then you’re supposed to feel obligated to adopt it.

I’ve tried this about 50 times, and each match was for a dog in Auckland, New Zealand. That’s the only downside to the Doggelganger website — it doesn’t match you with any local dogs, just Kiwis.

I have also not been able to disprove that Doggelganger assigns matches based on a person’s skin color. If you’re black or Asian, don’t be surprised to get a black or golden lab.

I fully support anything that promotes adopting homeless animals, so even if Doggelganger is a slightly racist computer program, it’s still fun to use, and deserves some recognition.

The site is easy to navigate, and a woman with a pleasant robotic voice narrates each screen. You can submit a snapshot of your face with your webcam, or upload a photo. Photos can be rotated and re-sized, and all you have to do is match your face up with the lines until they turn green.

It works best when you have a neutral expression on your face in the photo.

After a few seconds and some fancy flash animation and robot voices, you’ll have a match!

Remember, your match will most likely be from New Zealand. I hear it’s a lovely place, but I can’t vouch for the dogs there. But somebody has to adopt these dogs, so it might as well be you.

Also, don’t be sad if the Doggelganger software matches you up with a Chinese crested dog.