By John McDevitt

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) –It’s becoming more popular, people in need asking strangers for money through social media and its proving to be successful.

When Joseph Carey of the Tacony’s 4-year-old Dachshund Murphy suddenly was diagnosed with a ruptured disk in his spine and an expensive surgery that he couldn’t afford was needed.  

He didn’t know what to do, so he made an appeal on social media to raise the money.

Carey say, “there’s actually a trending hash tag right now #helpmurphy, #dogsformurphy as well and social media is were 99 percent of the donations came from.”

Thousands of dollars were raised about another thousand is needed.

Dr. Sean Goggins is with Drexel University’s i School, College of Information Science and Technology.  He says efforts like this will most likely grow in popularity.

Dr. Goggins says, “the opportunity to give a small amount of money and have an impact it gives people a sence of power in the world that they can make these changes as these requests become more common our response to them may be less dramatic.”