How it works

Everything Pawcial does, in about two minutes.

Pawcial works differently depending on who lives with you. Dogs get playdates and the park. Cats get care, places and lost-pet alerts. Both live in the same app — here's each one.

🐶 For dog parents

Find the dogs your dog actually gets on with.

  1. 01

    Add your dog

    Breed, age, energy level, play style, and how they do with other dogs. This is what compatibility scoring reads, so the more honest you are about a dog who plays rough, the better the matches get.

  2. 02

    Check in when you're out

    Heading to the park? Check in as ready to play. Other dog parents nearby see you're out, and the check-in expires on its own — there's no live tracking, and nothing shares your location when you haven't checked in.

  3. 03

    See who's compatible

    Every nearby dog gets a score out of 100 with the reasons behind it — energy match, play style, size. Great match, good fit, maybe, or use caution. You get to decide before the leashes come off.

  4. 04

    Build a circle

    Mark dogs you trust. Log the playdates that actually happen. After five, a dog becomes a BFF and sits at the top of your list — the friendships your dog picked, remembered.

🐱 For cat parents

Cats come in through care, not play.

Cats don't do playdates, check-ins or the map — we deliberately didn't build those, because a territorial animal has no use for them. What's here instead:

  1. 01

    Add your cat

    Indoor or outdoor, good with other cats, lap cat, and the microchip number you can never find when you need it. It's a cat form, not a dog form with the words swapped — no play style, no park.

  2. 02

    Find what your cat needs nearby

    Feline vets, cat sitters who do drop-in visits, boarding, cat-experienced groomers, supplies, cat cafés and rescues. Search your own area or any city, with a written local guide for each one.

  3. 03

    If they get out, raise an alert

    Post a photo and where they were last seen. Pet parents nearby get a notification and can report a sighting straight back to you. Mark it resolved the moment they're home.

🦮 For dog walkers

Manage clients, and check their dogs in.

  1. 01

    Set up a walker profile

    Your bio, your neighborhood, and the reviews your clients leave. Dog parents browsing walkers see all of it.

  2. 02

    Connect with clients

    Share your code and clients can find you directly. Once a client approves you, their dog appears in your list.

  3. 03

    Check dogs in on their behalf

    Walker check-ins show on the map with a purple pin and a walker badge, so everyone at the park knows who they're talking to.

What about privacy?

There is no continuous location tracking in Pawcial. Nothing shares where you are unless you check in, check-ins expire on their own, and you can set how far away people can see you — or make your profile private entirely. Cat profiles never appear on the map at all.

The full detail is in our privacy policy, and what we expect of people is in the acceptable use policy. Meeting up with strangers deserves care, so we also wrote a safety guide.

Still stuck, or something not working?

We read everything that comes in, and a fair amount of what's in the app now exists because someone wrote to us about it.

Email us →