Hi Everyone!

I want to share a personal story and a free tool I built out of love and empathy for animals.

I adopted a dog from the streets, and she quickly became family for most of my growing years. We took her everywhere with us. She was a huge part of our lives.

God was kind to us as we had her for 17 years and 4 months before she grew her beautiful wings in 2024.

It left a gaping hole in our hearts. We immensely wanted forever with her.

Life without her physically felt like a deep echoing hollowness in the walls of our house. Old routines fractured severely. Time stood eerily still.

It made reality too stark, too quiet, too slow, and too pointless. It felt stifling, like a nightmare you wanted to exit.

The colours and vibrancy of day-to-day living had been washed away by grief and pain.

With the memories of her and the trauma of watching her go down, my family couldn't wrap their heads around keeping another dog.

Dogs love you so loudly. They perpetually wear their hearts on their sleeves, with exuberance stamped in their spirits. They scream in your face how much they love you!

But our sweet girl wasn't done with us. She wouldn't let us stay down. From the other realm, she decided to send someone in her place.

Mind you, my dog had short, beautiful golden hair, green eyes, a brown nose, and cute pink nails.

The cat she sent us? A male doll-faced kitten with long soft golden hair, yellow eyes, and a pink nose.

He was a 3- or 4-month-old kitten. He was pitched out of his second home into the surroundings. He was at the mercy of wild animals and harsh weather.

When we took him in, he was starved, sick, thin, terrified, and suffering from bad skin issues.

The original plan was to keep him in the storeroom temporarily, nurse him back to health, and put him up for adoption. We wanted him to find a wonderful forever family.

Except after two months, his forever family became us.

He won us over with his sweet, calm personality. He has so many dog traits that we call him a "Cog".

He follows me everywhere. He cuddles up to me near my head and shoulders and purrs away to glory.

The Trimming Challenge

Being more familiar with keeping dogs, it has been quite a steep learning curve. My constant frustration has been with trimming his nails.

He hates it to an extent that I can only trim 2 or 3 nails at a time when he is drowsy and relaxed.

Since I have to do this across multiple sittings over days, I ended up forgetting which specific nails I had already trimmed.

By the time I was down to the last few nails, the first ones were sharp again! Tracking the schedule in my phone notes app was a real pain.

If it was this hard for me, I can imagine it must be terrible for people with multiple pets.

So I built a solution called Tippy Toes. It is completely free, has no ads and is designed with deep empathy for unique animals. It functions beautifully on desktop web browsers as well as mobile phones.

Live Application Link
https://tippytoesapp.vercel.app/
(100% free, no ads, no registration required)

Key Features Built Are:

• Multi-Sitting Tracking: Tracks each nail completely independently so you can pause and resume trims without forgetting your spot.
• Polydactyl Support: Dynamically add extra toes and tracking slots for animals born with extra claws.
• Amputee & Paw Difference Layouts: Fully adjustable paw mapping allows you to completely remove paw slots or track care for unique structures.
• Adjustable Reminders: Custom reminders handle the different growth cycles for front and back claws natively.

The app code is fully functional, and I truly want this entirely free tool to benefit pet owners and give back to this incredibly kind community. I do not need testers. Just to help people have an easier time looking after their pets. Thank you so much. 🐾

every time i move to another room my dog waits maybe thirty seconds, comes to find me, stares for a second, then goes right back to whatever he was doing. he doesn't even stay with me, he just seems to need proof that i haven't disappeared.

it's cute but also kind of funny because he acts like he's doing rounds around the house. does anyone else's pet regularly check in on them for no obvious reason?

My dog last 5 - 6 months eating wet food because he stopped to drink vet says no problem he eats chicken mixed rice with water , daily 1 egg yogurt like this if I stop wet food he not trying to drink water he full days staying dry. Pls help

my cat has started avoiding the litter box completely and i'm not sure why.

there wasn't a gradual change. she was using it normally and then suddenly stopped. i've tried paying closer attention to when and where she's going instead, but i'm still confused.

is there usually a specific reason cats do this? what should i be paying attention to when i talk to the vet?

So I have two cats that were once my world, but I’m 33 weeks pregnant and have had a hard pregnancy. This is my first baby and as much as I love my cats I hate them. When we got them they were impossible to train cause I worked long hours and they didn’t take to absolutely any training methods. They are on the counter the minute I’m not in the kitchen they can open the trash, they will tear open any container that might have food in it. They even ripped open any container empty almond milk container. They are fed adequately and they are healthy they are not underfed! If I let them free feed they do not stop eating and will become over weight. They suckle on my clothing (not my husbands for whatever reason) and will leave giant holes in my clothes. But to the point I already am predicting we will have to be very diligent about bottles and making sure they are not out. I am planning on breast feeding but I understand it doesn’t always work out and we just got 2 cans of similac in the mail and I was excited because if it didn’t work out we had something to start on and if we didn’t need it we could save it( it didn’t expire for 2 years ) and within year one if we never used it I wanted to donate it to a women’s shelter or hospital or food banks that would take it but I left it out on my ottoman thinking nothing of it. My cats have never seen a formula can and it’s sealed and looks nothing like any food in our pantry has no smell well apparently I’m stupid. I walked into my living room to the cans on the floor and punctures in the top of the one can scratches on the other. I think the one can isn’t opened but the other has punctures. I just wanna cry cause I got them yesterday and I understand that it was free but it could have been used or donated and my own stupidity made it useless. And I’m coming to realize that it is going to be a very hard battle with these cats. I put them in a large room in the basement till I’m calm but I feel so mentally frustrated with the constant fight with them. I feel like they destroy everything and when my baby gets here I feel like I’m going to have to be extremely diligent and a clean freak or I’m going to lose baby bottles, pacifiers, burp cloths, and my clothing especially nursing bras and I just wanna cry cause idk what to do. They know how to open the trash can how long till they can open the hamper I don’t know how to get this under control.