Painting a New Picture of Rescue Dogs to Bolster Pet Adoption

Some of these pooches dig surrealism. Others prefer abstract art. All need forever homes

What, Lupo? You like dreamy artwork with weird imagery that probes secrets of the subconscious mind? Good boy!

BLKJ Havas in Singapore and Havas New York seek to change how prospective adopters view rescue dogs with a campaign that gauges fido’s “taste” in paintings, sculptures and more. With adoptions down of late, the initiative—developed with The Sato Project and Powerhouse Arts—features dogs reacting to exhibits at the latter’s Brooklyn gallery.

In theory, this reveals aspects of each pooch’s personality to help humans see them in a fresh light.

Each dog appears in “Rescue Collection” promos that use art from the gallery to reflect the canines’ attributes and preferences. The concept’s clearly a stretch. But this project puts our furry friends in a novel context to fine effect. The odd juxtaposition of art and pups proves compelling—and so cute!

Here, Guilherme Machado, executive creative director at BLKJ Havas Singapore, walks us through the campaign.

Where did the idea spring from? What was the genesis?

It started with a simple problem: Rescue dogs are often defined by their past, their breed, where they came from, what happened to them, rather than by who they actually are. We came across research showing that dogs can respond emotionally and behaviorally to visual stimuli, including art. And that sparked a question: Could their reactions to art tell us something about their individual preferences and personalities?

We reached out to one of the researchers working in this field, and we were lucky enough to have her involved in the project from the very beginning.

Instead of creating another adoption profile based on history and physical characteristics, we wanted to find a completely different way of introducing these dogs to people: through their taste.

It’s always rrrrruf working with animals. Was the gallery shoot challenging?

One of our biggest concerns was very practical: What if one of the dogs peed or pooped on an artwork? Thankfully, that never happened. But, funny enough, the very first dog that walked into the gallery immediately pooped on the floor. So that created a little bit of tension from the start.

This one never really felt like a traditional shoot. We couldn’t tell the dogs what to do or manufacture a reaction. We had to create the environment and then let them lead.

Each dog had time to get acclimatized to the gallery before exploring the exhibition freely. We observed how they approached different works, how long they stayed, whether they became curious, excited, relaxed or disengaged, all alongside animal behavior specialists.

That was probably the most entertaining part. You quickly started seeing completely different personalities emerge. After a while it genuinely felt like five very opinionated gallery visitors walking around an exhibition.

Who’s the primary audience here?

Ultimately, it’s for anyone who might be considering getting a dog. But most importantly, it’s for anyone whose perception of rescue dogs is still shaped by labels. We want people to look at these dogs and see an individual before they see a rescue. If someone comes away thinking, “I never thought about a rescue dog that way before,” then the work has done something important. And ideally that change in perception leads to action. Every dog in the project can be adopted, and the platform also helps people find rescue organizations and dogs near them.

That’s a different approach—and there’s no fundraising element, which we see so often in these types of campaigns.

Rescue dogs can carry assumptions because of where they’ve come from or what’s happened to them. We wanted to give people another lens through which to see them. So rather than asking people for money, we’re asking them to reconsider what they think they know about rescue dogs and, hopefully, consider adoption. It’s awareness, but awareness with a very practical destination: helping more dogs be seen, discovered and ultimately adopted.

How are you getting the word out?

Each dog’s “collection” becomes part of their new profile. The website takes that further, allowing people to discover the dogs in the project and find rescue organizations close to where they live. One of our ambitions is for the methodology to become useful beyond these five dogs, to demonstrate a different way rescue organizations could reveal and communicate the individuality of the animals in their care.

On top of that, we’ve built a digital pocket version of the exhibition that we can share with rescue organizations around the world. It allows them to run a simplified version of the experience, learn a little more about a dog’s personality and potentially use those insights to update their profiles. We’re also working to put the idea in front of audiences beyond the traditional animal-welfare space, including art, culture, design and broader mainstream media.

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