More time for animal care with AI

DOA animal shelter is the largest animal shelter in the Netherlands. The 125-year-old foundation provides shelter and a new home for 2,000 cats and dogs each year. To give staff and volunteers more space for the animals themselves, DOA, in collaboration with Microsoft partner Axelio, built several AI solutions based on Dynamics 365, Power Platform, Microsoft Foundry, and Copilot Studio.

"With AI, we can provide more care for animals. We spend less time on administration and planning, and have more time for the care of the most complex animals," says Hans Fokkens, director of DOA animal shelter.

Power Apps with AI Accelerate Animal Registration

Every day, stray animals come in that must be registered before they receive care, shelter, or training. Axelio developed a Power Apps tool that largely leaves this to AI.

A volunteer takes a photo of the animal; via Power Automate, the app sends this to an AI model in Microsoft Foundry. That model compares the photo with thousands of other images and data and automatically determines breed, color, and estimated age, including an AI-generated reliability score. After a brief check, the app records the file in Dynamics 365.

Thanks to AI, the registration time is halved, from 10–15 minutes to just over 5 minutes, and volunteers can now do this independently. "It saves a lot of guesswork and speeds up the process," says Stanislav Kovaliov, Operations Manager at DOA animal shelter. "We were surprised at how accurate AI is."

Copilot Studio Supports Veterinary Care

Medical care also heavily relies on AI. A Power Apps tool retrieves data about breed, weight, and age via Microsoft Dataverse, after which a Copilot Studio AI agent prepares a health prognosis, fed by years of internal data and authoritative external professional sources.

AI predicts the likelihood of conditions such as hip dysplasia or ear infections, advises treatments, and automatically schedules follow-up appointments with the veterinarian. "The app ensures that our veterinarians do not overlook important health issues and can even provide a better prognosis," says Kovaliov.

The solution also has an AI chat function that provides the medical team with answers to questions within moments, drawn from internal and external sources. "This significantly speeds up their work," says Fokkens. Additionally, the AI agent in the app predicts the expected treatment costs of an animal based on the foundation's financial history, allowing potential adopters to make informed choices and preventing unnecessary returns of pets.

AI Manages Volunteer Scheduling

Volunteers walk dozens of dogs daily. Scheduling this used to take two hours of administrative work per day; now a Copilot Studio AI agent generates this schedule in moments, based on volunteer and animal data from Dataverse.

The AI schedule appears on a large screen; volunteers check in via a touchscreen upon departure and return. If a volunteer unexpectedly drops out, the AI calculates a new schedule with one click. "The app takes the puzzling and the challenge of planning off our hands," says Kovaliov. "Now our staff can focus on what matters most: training and rehabilitating dogs."

The use of AI gives the staff at DOA animal shelter the space to do what only humans can do: care for their four-legged friends. "The animals that end up at the shelter need a lot of help, and their numbers are growing," concludes Fokkens. "Thanks to these AI apps, the caregivers have more time to train and rehabilitate the dogs and cats. This helps them get adopted more quickly."