My Dog for Life uses decision science to help Australians choose a dog that fits their life
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia – September 15, 2026 – My Dog for Life is applying decision science to one of the most common household decisions, and has launched in Australia first. Its free Dog Finder uses multi-criteria decision analysis, a method developed for health technology assessment and government priority setting, to match people with a dog that suits the life they actually live.
A typical breed quiz adds up a person’s answers once and returns a result. The Dog Finder works differently, and the difference is the method.
It begins by asking people to compare their priorities in pairs, for example whether a dog that is easy to train is worth more to them than one that barely sheds. Choosing between two options is far easier than scoring twenty of them, and it reveals what someone genuinely trades off rather than what they say matters. This is the same pairwise logic behind the PAPRIKA method, built for decisions in health and public policy where the weighting has to come from the people affected rather than from an analyst.
Each answer then narrows a field of possibilities rather than fixing a single answer. The Finder starts with 10,000 randomly drawn weightings of a person’s chosen criteria and discards every weighting that contradicts an answer. It also chooses each next question to be the one that divides the remaining weightings most evenly, so twelve or less questions do the work of many more.
What survives is not one set of weights but a population of them: every weighting still consistent with what the person said. The Finder ranks all breeds, designer crosses included, under each surviving weighting, and recommends the breeds that rise to the top most consistently. That final step is the Monte Carlo part, and it is what a quiz cannot do. Rather than one answer computed from one assumed weighting, people get an answer tested across the whole range of weightings their own choices allow, along with a measure of how stable that result is.
The criteria come from a menu of 16, covering size, activity needs, trainability, shedding, grooming, health, lifespan, temperament and how well a breed suits first-time owners. The Finder takes about three minutes, and everyone who finishes gets a free personalised Breed Match Report by email.
“Choosing a dog is a decision you live with for a decade or more, and most people make it on a photograph. The methods we use here are the ones health systems use to decide what technologies and services to fund: structured ways of working out what someone actually values when they cannot have everything. A dog is exactly that kind of decision,” said Professor Ilias Goranitis, co-founder of My Dog for Life.
For My Dog for Life, the breed match is just the start. Once someone has chosen a dog, the Onboarding Hub guides them through the first weeks: what to buy before pickup, registering with the local council, transferring the microchip into their own name, booking the first vet visit and vaccinations, and starting toilet and crate training. Reminders appear on a shared calendar built around the dog’s breed and age.
The platform also helps with decisions that come later. Its Insurance Hub explains pet insurance in plain English and includes a tool for comparing insurance against setting money aside each month. Its directories list responsible breeders, trainers, groomers, vets and walkers/sitters, and it ranks breeders and trainers by how well they fit, never by who paid.
For the time in between, the Fun Page offers multiple kids activities, including colouring pages, colour-by-number, multiple dog trivia challenges for both kids and adults, name finder, dog to human age conversion, and a community feed. It is built for kids on school holidays and for dog lovers on a lunch break.
My Dog for Life also runs a newsroom covering Australian dog law, health and welfare. Many of its stories are also available as podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, in English and German.
About My Dog for Life
My Dog for Life is an Australian platform developed to bring everything together in one place to help people choose with confidence, find trusted support and create better lives for dogs and the people who love them. Founded in 2026 by Jochem den Boer and Ilias Goranitis, it is based in Melbourne. Finding the right dog is only the beginning.
Media Contact
Company Name: My Dog for Life
Contact Person: Jochem den Boer
Email: Send Email
Phone: +61467716622
City: Melbourne
State: Victoria
Country: Australia
Website: https://mydogforlife.com
