UPDATE: I have been identified as the father in a recent HuffPo article which I am not. I am just a person commenting on this social phenomenon. This was likely due to a typo on this blog post, which has now been fixed. I apologize for the confusion.

 
Yesterday afternoon an east coast American family had a conversation about getting a family dog and in the end, a father challenged two daughters (out of 5 kids!), that if they could get 1 million likes on Facebook, that they would get a puppy. In 7 hours, they reached their goal.

 
Their father, a university professor named Ryan Cordell, set up a Facebook page titled “Two Girls and a Puppy“, and the girls created a poster stating “Hi World! We want a puppy! Our Dad said we can get one if we get 1 million likes. So LIKE this. He doesn’t think we can do it!”

 
The mission was simple and their Dad helped them write the following post, explaining their request in further detail;

 
“Hi, We’re two sisters and we desperately want a puppy. We have three little brothers, too. Yes, we have five kids in our family. We lost our dog several months ago to cancer. We really want another one but our parents are reluctant. Then the other day we saw a brother and sister on Facebook post a picture saying that their dad would let them get a dog if they get a ton of likes. We got our dad to agree to it! He said if we get 1 million likes we get a new puppy. He doesn’t think we can do it.”

 
Well, the world took notice and a few likes turned into hundreds, then thousands in the first few hours. They also achieved thousands of comments prompting Dad to write;

 
“Hi all. Dad here. Still amazed to see the traction this is getting. This page started as a random idea during a conversation with the girls this afternoon. I honestly didn’t think it would explode like this, but it’s been fun to watch. The girls are asleep right now (it’s late on the east coast of the US), but will no doubt be thrilled to see what happened on the page overnight. With so many folks visiting, this may be a futile appeal: but these are real kids and they will want to read your comments and see who posted on the wall overnight. Please keep the language civil. You can think we’re terrible people if you want–though again, this started more as a dare than a plot–but please don’t write rude things for my children to read. I will certainly keep my word. If this keeps going we’ll be visiting a shelter very soon! We’ll definitely post pictures here.”

 
They also didn’t want this campaign to be taken as commercial and originally had posted a link seeking donations, which they removed and commented with;

 
“In our original post we had a link for donations, but that was partly because mom and dad didn’t think anyone other than close friends and family would actually see this page! We removed that link when we saw how many people were coming to this page. We don’t want to ask strangers for money, only likes.”

 
Many early Facebook comments urged the family to rescue a dog from a local shelter in which they replied;

 
“For those that are curious if we make it our new puppy will be a rescue either from a local shelter or a local rescue organization.”

 
At around midnight eastern time, approximately 7 hours after their campaign started, they reached their goal and posted;

 
“Our profile picture just hit 1,000,000. Mom and Dad are officially stunned. Will have five ecstatic kids in the morning.”

 
Dad even tried to wake the girls up and tell them the news and then returned to Facebook to post the following;

 
Hi all. Dad here. Still amazed to see the traction this is getting. This page started as a random idea during a conversation with the girls this afternoon. I honestly didn’t think it would explode like this, but it’s been fun to watch. The girls are asleep right now (it’s late on the east coast of the US), but will no doubt be thrilled to see what happened on the page overnight. With so many folks visiting, this may be a futile appeal: but these are real kids and they will want to read your comments and see who posted on the wall overnight. Please keep the language civil. You can think we’re terrible people if you want–though again, this started more as a dare than a plot–but please don’t write rude things for my children to read. I will certainly keep my word. If this keeps going we’ll be visiting a shelter very soon! We’ll definitely post pictures here.

 
I love this story, and the viral nature of it and can’t wait to see the reaction in the morning.