The Stories Behind Those Crazy-Cute Puppy Cams

You're not the only ones who fell head over paws for those delectable Shiba Inus bouncing around in front of a Web cam 24 hours a day, seven days a week back in 2008.

The award-winning cam has been joined by hundreds of other pups vying for your hearts at live broadcast site UStream. Largely in the homes of breeders, some of the cams are being used to market puppies to potential owners, some to allow would-be owners to track their new friends from birth until the day they can come home, and still more to open up the breeding process to ensure transparency in all that happens during a puppy's life.

As Ed Pelto -- owner of Olde English Bulldogges in Woodbury, Minn. and the person behind the Pelto Bulldogges Puppy Cam -- explains to Paw Nation, avoiding a puppy mill is a lot easier when you can watch every moment of a dog's life live on your computer.

"There's no hiding anything here," Pelto says. "With all the controversy, all the news and with these cams, how people still end up buying from puppy mills, I just don't understand."

But there's a lot more to puppy cams than just folks looking to weed out the bad breeders. As Pelto says with a laugh, "Everybody loves puppies, don't they?"

They love them enough to have pushed the Shiba Inus to the People's Voice Award winner in the Viral category for the 13th Annual Webby Awards. And they love them enough that animal owners have been putting their pups on camera far before those balls of fur made for a frenzy.

Karen Moureaux, owner of Contact Point Border Collies in Fillmore, Calif., put up her first cam six years ago on her own Web site before moving to UStream last summer. Today she markets the service to her buyers as a way for them to bond with their new dogs from birth, but most of her viewers aren't buyers -- nor does she need them to be.

"Some people fall in love with them just watching them online, but it isn't necessarily the right dog for their situation," Moureaux says. She's sold one or two, but she's just as happy allowing puppy lovers to watch without buying. Her viewers have become like a second set of eyes, some calling if they think something's wrong with a puppy, some taking turns when a mom is close to delivery so Moureaux can get some shut-eye.

For Allan, a single guy from Britain (who declined to have his last name published), the cam was a way to keep an eye on his Rottweiler puppies while he was at work. Now he calls his "crew" of rottie pups "online stars."

"Due to the popularity of the broadcast, the crew have become an almost 24 hour a day job," Allan confesses. "The viewers have helped with so many things -- taking part in naming polls, giving advice when I wasn't sure the best way to handle situations."

With chat enabled on many of the streams, the watchers have become friends with one another, and sometimes friends with the breeders. When he's not working as an HVAC contractor (that's his business advertised at the back of his pup's home), Pelto gets on the microphone to update the viewers on what's been going on with the dogs. That "personal interaction" has driven his viewership, he says, along with his decision to play with the camera, move it around and actually give people a show.

The watchers have made it clear that though Allan's pups have found homes, they want to keep track of mom and dad (Jade and Amazon), "so that we can all ensure we all stay in touch."

"This has come about from simply needing to keep an eye on a few pups I wasn't expecting," Allan tells Paw Nation.

Cams that are left to sit in one spot and operators who don't weigh in are ignored, Pelto advises. To get viewers, get involved. As for the cost, Moureaux says it isn't much. A decent Web cam runs under $100 these days. Just want to get a view? Check out UStream's wide offerings.

Tags: border collies, BorderCollies, bulldogge, Old English bulldogge, OldEnglishBulldogge, puppy cams, rottweilers