Privacy Policy.
How The Pooch Pit handles your information, in plain English.
Last updated 2026-10-16
The Pooch Pit (“we,” “us,” or “our”) runs this website. This policy explains what we collect when you use the site, request an appointment, pay online or leave a review, who handles it for us, how long we keep it, and the choices you have.
What we collect
When you request an appointment
- Your contact details: name, email address and phone number.
- Your pet’s details: name, species, breed, weight, and any notes you choose to share (such as coat condition, behaviour or health needs).
- The appointment: the service and any add-ons, your pet’s size or the number of dogs, the date and time (or the days for pet sitting), whether it is drop-off or in-home, and for an in-home visit the address we should come to.
As your appointment goes ahead we add to that record: whether we approved or declined it, any note we wrote when deciding, the quoted and final price, whether the deposit and balance were paid and how (online or in person), any tip, and the payment reference Stripe gives us.
When you pay online
Deposits and balances are paid on Stripe’s secure checkout page. You type your card details there, not on this site, and we never see or store your card number. We send Stripe your email address, the amount, and a line such as “Deposit — your pet’s name (service)” plus any tip. Stripe tells us when the payment has gone through.
When you leave a review
The review form asks for your name, your pet’s name (optional), a star rating and your review. New reviews are hidden until we approve them. Once approved, your name, your pet’s name, the rating and the review are shown publicly on this site.
The emails we send you
The site emails you about your appointment: that we received your request, whether it was approved or declined, the link to pay your deposit, receipts, your balance, a reminder the day before (when reminders are switched on), and an invitation to leave a review after your visit. A copy of every email the site sends is kept in our private dashboard.
The address search
When you type an address for an in-home visit on the booking form, the letters you have typed so far are sent from your browser to Photon, an address-search service run by komoot, to suggest matching addresses. Photon receives that text and your internet (IP) address, as any website you load does; it does not receive your name or anything else from the form.
Technical information
To stop the booking, payment and review forms being flooded, the site counts requests from each IP address: for a few minutes, and for booking requests also for a day. It counts the “we got your request” emails sent to each email address in a day, keeping a scrambled (hashed) form of the address rather than the address itself, and stops sending them after a few; the request is still saved and we still see it. Failed sign-ins to our staff dashboard are counted per IP address for a day. These counts are held in the server’s memory only and are not saved. Our hosting and network providers (below) keep their own request logs, which include IP addresses, for security and troubleshooting.
Visitor statistics
We use Cloudflare Web Analytics to count visits. When a page loads, a small script from Cloudflare reports the page you viewed, the page that linked you here (the referrer), your browser and device type, how quickly the page loaded, and your country, which Cloudflare works out from your IP address. It sets no cookies, stores nothing in your browser, and does not build a profile of you or follow you across other websites. We see only the totals, such as page views per day.
How we use your information
- To review, confirm and manage your appointment.
- To contact you about your request, booking, deposit or balance.
- To prepare for your pet’s visit and provide our services.
- To take payments and keep a record of them.
- To show the reviews we have approved.
- To see, in totals, how many people visit and which pages they use.
We do not sell your personal information, and we don’t send marketing emails.
Who handles it for us
We share your information only with the services that run the site and take payments for us. They handle it on our behalf.
- Railway hosts the website and its database, which holds your bookings, reviews, the copies of our emails, and our photos.
- Cloudflare sits in front of the website and passes every visit to it, so it sees your IP address and the page you asked for. Its Web Analytics gives us overall visitor figures, as described under “Visitor statistics” above.
- Resend delivers the emails the site sends, so it receives your email address and what each email says.
- Stripe processes card payments under its own privacy policy.
- Photon (komoot) suggests addresses, as described above.
When you reply to one of our emails, or write to us, your message goes to our inbox at [email protected]. We may also disclose information if the law requires it.
Photos of your pet
We may photograph your pet and share before-and-after photos on our website or social media. These photos feature pets, not personal details about you. If you’d prefer we don’t share photos of your pet, just let us know and we’ll respect that.
Cookies and local storage
The public pages of this site set no cookies of their own and store nothing in your browser, and the Cloudflare visitor statistics use no cookies either. A single secure cookie keeps staff signed in to the private management dashboard; it is set only after a correct password and lasts up to 12 hours. Stripe’s checkout page is part of Stripe’s website and uses Stripe’s own cookies.
How long we keep it
Bookings, their payment records and the copies of our emails stay in our database with no automatic deletion, so we have a history of your pet’s visits. Approved reviews stay on the site until we remove them. Backup copies of the database that we download hold the same records. Stripe keeps its own record of each payment under its policy. If you ask us to delete your information we will, except for what we must keep as a record of a payment.
Your choices
You can ask us what information we hold about you, and ask us to correct or delete it. You can cancel an appointment with the link in your emails. To make a request, email [email protected] or call (360) 852-1157. We’ll respond as promptly as we reasonably can.
Children
This site is for adults booking care for their pets. It is not directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect information from children under 13. If you think a child has given us information, tell us and we will delete it.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. When we do, we’ll post the new version here and change the “last updated” date above.
Contact us
Questions about your privacy? Email [email protected] or call (360) 852-1157.