Busy parents often arrange play dates for their children. Why not their dogs, too?

A Waynesboro couple pounced on the idea, creating Dogpals.com, a site that caters to dog owners, providing resources to help find compatible pups for their dogs to play with. Noel Munson, 28, who by day is an Internet product planner for Internet service provider nTelos, and his wife Anne came up with the idea for Dogpals. "We had an SPCA dog who had separation anxiety," he explains. "We would leave, and the dog wFinding a friend for Fidoould tear the place up. Anytime it was with another dog, it was OK," he says.

Getting another dog wasn’t an option, so the Munsons had to take the dog back to the SPCA. Anne, frustrated, thought: "There must be other people who have the same problem."

And just like that, Dogpals was born. Dogpals.com aims to match dogs together with other dogs in the same area for play dates. Dog owners log on and upload information to the site such as age, activity level and breed of their dog as well as personal data. Owners can search for other dog owners in their area by typing in their zip code. Most of the registered users on the site now are Virginians, but the nature of the site allows for anyone in the United States to use the service.

"During the first month we had about 3,500 hits, In April, we had 25,000," says Noel, who convinced former employer Cornerstone Networks in Charlottesville to donate the initial design work and host the site.

Noel says he’s relied mainly on the media for publicity. And because the Web site is a side project for him — one he works on during his off time — he hasn’t been focused on it turning a profit — yet. "We’ve spent much more than we’ve made," he says, "but there are many one-time expenses, like licensing fees."

For now, the site is funded by sponsors such as PetsMart.com and the Munsons hope to make money eventually. "What we hoped was that some dog that was lonely would be much happier," Noel says. "It was worth it when we got our first thank you letter. Since then, we’ve gotten thousands."

— Catherine Leitch