We developed a fully dynamic, database-driven website to highlight adoptable dogs from the Weatherford Parker County Animal Shelter. This independent project aims at improving visibility for local shelter dogs in need of forever homes.
Designed for both efficiency and scalability, the platform allows shelter volunteers to manage dog profiles with minimal effort while keeping the public-facing site always up to date.
Visitors can browse and filter dogs by name, age, gender, breed, and size. All listings are synced with a real-time database.
Dog profiles display a primary photo, additional gallery images, animal ID, age, gender, breed, size, personality traits, heartworm status, and a generated bio.
Shelter volunteers can generate dog bios with a single click. The system pulls from structured profile data to create meaningful descriptions automatically – no prompting required.
Learn MoreShelter volunteers can easily manage dog profiles by adding primary and gallery images, selecting predefined personality traits, entering custom likes and dislikes, and generating AI-powered bios. This streamlined workflow ensures consistent, high-quality content across the site.
Learn MoreProfile data powers autogenerated metadata, Open Graph tags, and clean URLs, boosting discoverability on search engines and social media.
Learn MoreA real-time slideshow showcases currently available dogs, pulling live data from the backend with no manual updates.
The website is fully responsive and mobile-friendly, providing an optimal experience across devices.
The platform is powered by a custom Django backend that serves as the central hub for managing all dog profiles and powering real-time features across the site.
All dog profiles are stored in a relational database that enables real-time data management and seamless synchronization with the platform. The database is designed to capture detailed attributes for each dog, ensuring rich, structured data that powers both frontend displays and backend operations.
The platform supports multiple user roles with customizable permissions, allowing for delegation of data management tasks: Users can be given full access to all data and system settings, or their access can be limited to only being able to edit or manage specific data fields. This structure helps maintain data integrity while allowing collaboration.
The system has powerful filtering and management capabilities. Users can easily identify which profiles are missing specific fields, streamlining content management and ensuring high-quality, complete listings.
All frontend components – including dog profiles and the slideshow – are powered by live data pulled directly from the backend. Any changes in the admin dashboard, such as a new dog being added, profile updates, or a dog being adopted, are automatically reflected on the public site with no manual intervention required.
A JavaScript-powered slideshow pulls live data from the backend, showcasing dogs currently available for adoption. It updates automatically as profiles change, making it a dynamic, maintenance-free spotlight feature.
To ensure each dog profile is optimized for discoverability, we built a programmatic SEO system that dynamically generates metadata using templating logic tied to the site’s backend. This approach goes beyond basic plugin-based SEO, offering a logic-driven, highly automated metadata architecture tailored to structured content.
SEO title tags, meta descriptions, and alt text are automatically generated using server-side expressions, pulling directly from the dog’s profile data.
Clean, crawlable URLs are created using each dog’s unique ID, ensuring distinct and SEO-friendly pages.
OG metadata – including title, description, and image – is generated server-side from each dog’s profile, ensuring accurate and compelling social previews.
As dogs are added to the database or their profiles are edited, all metadata updates automatically – no additional manual input is required. This makes the platform scalable, low-maintenance, and consistently optimized.
A standout feature is the one-click AI bio generator powered by ChatGPT. System users don’t need to write or prompt anything – just click a button.
Behind the scenes, a structured prompt pulls data from the respective dog profile (personality traits, size, age, etc.) to create a compelling bio in seconds.
The bios maintain a consistent tone and format while still being personalized to each dog’s traits.
This saves time and ensures every dog has a high-quality description, regardless of writing skills or time constraints.
The system minimizes administrative overhead while maximizing visibility for adoptable dogs. Volunteers can generate compelling content effortlessly, and the public-facing site remains synchronized and searchable.