# Blue Cross uses dogs for mobile contactless fundraising

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/05/19/blue-cross-uses-dogs-mobile-contactless-fundraising/
- Published: 2016-05-19T13:50:40+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Animal charity Blue Cross has started to fundraise using dogs that wear coats 
that handle contactless donations from mobile phones.**

The first dogs to join the Tap Dogs team are Smudge the golden Labrador; Maverick
the border collie; Cherry the lurcher, Ralph the old English sheepdog cross and 
Rosie the chocolate Labrador. They are helping to fundraise at the charity’s public
events across the country. Their contactless devices accept donations of £2.

A [Blue Cross](http://www.bluecross.org.uk) staff member said:

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> “Using a dog coat, we’ve sewn a pocket into it that holds the contactless payment
> device. Each time we tap the donation device it gives a £2 payment to Blue Cross”.

⌊Blue Cross contactless device for Tap Dogs⌉⌊Blue Cross contactless device for Tap
Dogs⌉
The dogs have worn coats before and the device only makes a small bleep so
the charity is confident that the activity will not distress the dogs.

The staff member added:

> “We really like the idea of our events dogs that are lucky and loved in their 
> homes to help dogs and other pets that are less fortunate. So hopefully members
> of the public will come along and pat our dogs and tap to make a donation to Blue
> Cross”.

All of the Tap Dogs are behaviour-assessed Blue Cross event dogs, owned by volunteers.
They regularly visit events and schools to raise awareness of many different aspects
of pet welfare but they have never before had the chance to play such a direct role
in helping the charity raise funds.

Blue Cross claims that its Tap Dogs are “the world’s first canine fundraisers”.

![Smudge the Tap Dog fundraising for The Blue Cross](https://wfay6x.infiniteuploads.
cloud/2016/05/smudge-pet-and-tap-blue-cross.jpg)

_Smudge at work for Blue Cross – pet and tap to donate £2._

The technology used to take contactless payment is PayPal Here. The device can 
only be activated by the volunteers and will only work when the chosen payment card
is pressed up against the card reader; chip and pin, and swipe options are available,
and volunteers can also provide receipts and issue refunds if required.

> View this post on Instagram
> [A post shared by Blue Cross UK (@the_blue_cross)](https://www.instagram.com/p/BFjdi-7B8en/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading)

## Watch Meet The Blue Cross Tap Dogs

![Loading](https://fundraising.co.uk/wp-content/plugins/page-views-count/ajax-loader-
2x.gif)