Spark Pet Botjoy

While Marie Kondo pretty much has the phrase “Spark Joy” locked down as her brand statement, the act of sparking joy can come from other things as much as folding your clothes into compact little packets.

Botjoy is one of these things. Created by Portland artist, Gary Hirsch, Botjoy is an art-forward movement to spark hope, courage, inspiration, AND joy into this world. He’s done so by painting small robots onto the the backs of dominos, then leaving them in the streets for random strangers to find. He’s expanded the effort by inviting others to steal his idea, which has led to the creation of Brave Bots for children in hospitals, Action Bots to encourage voting during the midterm elections, and our contribution, PetBots to promote pet adoption.

We actually created our PetBots (more specifically PupBots and CatBots) last year when D broke his leg and was cooped up for 10 weeks. Since then, we’ve left several in public spaces around Portland, Oregon, some in other states, and a few in other countries. Our hope is that we can extend Hirsch’s mission to use art to surprise, delight, and help others––as well as to spread the message of our cause, “Adopt Don’t Shop” your pets.

In all honesty, we haven’t been great at remembering to bring our PetBots every time we go out; but we try.

You can follow the adventures of our PetBots on Instagram @explora.mora where you can guess the locations they were left, and even let me know if by the off-chance you found one!