In this article
One person has the lead, another has the breakfast bowl, and both are wondering whether somebody already wrote the walk down.
A Dogoos household shares a pack and its records across up to five people's separate accounts, on every plan1.
Before sending an invite, agree which dog profiles you will use and what you are comfortable sharing. The setup is straightforward once everyone understands what moves into the household and what stays personal.
Keep a way back into your own account
Find Household in Settings, Account & plan. Each person uses their own account2.
The National Cyber Security Centre recommends a separate, strong email password, because access to email can help an attacker reset other accounts. It recommends different passwords for important accounts and encourages password managers3. Your dog's records are another reason to keep account access clear.
Email is more than a place to receive updates. NCSC highlights that an intruder could read private information, impersonate you in messages or reset passwords on other services. An account recovery route deserves more care than a convenient shared contact address3.
Newer NCSC guidance recommends passkeys wherever a service supports them, with two-step verification where it does not. Consider those options on your email or sign-in provider's account4. Follow the controls that provider actually offers when securing your route back in.
The guidance also emphasises securing devices and credential managers, with ways to recover access4. Think about how you would sign in after replacing a phone. Keeping that route under your own control is part of maintaining a separate identity while sharing care.
The account walkthrough says a connected email/password, Google or supported Apple sign-in gives you a way back into Dogoos. If an older account says Guest account, add a sign-in method before signing out or replacing the device5.
Create a household and invite one person
Choose Create our household, name it and let the pack's records and photos finish moving. Then use New invite code and Share invite2.
Codes work once, last twenty-four hours and only one is active at a time. Creating a replacement retires the previous code1. Send it directly to the person you mean to invite and agree who will be joining before generating another.
One invitation at a time
- PrepareAgree whose pack starts
- CreateLet records finish moving
- InviteSend the code directly
- ReviewCheck the joining person's choice
- ContinueMake the next invite after joining
Treat the code as access to the shared record. It is not a message to circulate to everyone who occasionally asks how the dog is doing. You can discuss a walk or send an ordinary update without making every recipient a member of the household.
Decide which dog profiles should move in
Bring my dogs, reads & health with me moves your pack into shared view. Switch it off to keep your personal pack separate until you leave2.
The sharing-a-dog guide explains that two existing profiles of the same animal remain two profiles. They keep separate histories and count separately against dog limits6. A matching name is not an instruction to merge the records.
Imagine that one of you has a year's weigh-ins while the other has a recently created profile with a few reads. Compare those records before deciding which profile everyone will use. Do not assume that joining will combine the older weights with the newer reads.
The same guide says deleting a duplicate removes it for the whole household6. Review the information attached to it before making that decision. A profile that looks redundant by name may contain a record you still want to keep.
Separate shared care from personal access
The household pack includes dog profiles, reads, keepsakes and the care journal. Members can see the name of whoever captured a read, and hiding a read affects the household's normal views1. That is a shared record, rather than an individually private notebook.
Journal entries have no per-entry privacy. Shared-pack membership covers the whole record, not a single visit6. Consider that scope when inviting someone who only helps occasionally.
| Shared pack | Personal account |
|---|---|
| Dog profiles and care records | Sign-in and account identity |
| Read history and keepsakes | Daily reads and Rex chat allowance |
| Meals, walks and reminders | Subscription, bones and streak |
The plans walkthrough says subscriptions, read and Rex chat allowances, and bones stay personal. A household does not transfer a paid subscription to another member7. The shared dogs can be the same while the features available to each person differ.
If somebody sees a paid feature and another person does not, first check which account and plan each is using. Keeping care together does not require everyone to use the same access level or to spend from somebody else's allowance.
Agree how you will hand over care
Reads identify their capturer; ordinary journal entries do not show an author. A medication entry describes a course, not proof of each dose6. Keep a direct handover for that question.
Discuss who will record each regular event and how you will flag anything unusual. If both people expect the other to write down breakfast, the shared record may still have a gap. If both add the same bowl, it may contain a duplicate. The arrangement works best when the people using it agree what their entries mean.
Shared reminders also need each phone's attention. The notifications guide explains that Health alarms can be delayed by device scheduling, focus or battery settings. Check the schedule in Health, especially for medication8. An alert's arrival is different from completing care.
Household updates have their own notification categories. Phone alerts require device permission, and each person can choose their delivery preferences8. Ask members to review the settings that fit their role; a shared record does not make every phone ring in the same way.
If joining stalls, read the message first
Invites may expire, be used, replaced or mistyped. Ask the owner for a fresh code. You can belong to one household, and joining requires room2.
If photos are still finishing after a join, you are already a member. Keep a connection while they arrive, without requesting another invite2.
Write down the message you see before trying a different route. If several people are helping with setup, agree who is doing the next step. Two simultaneous attempts can make an already confusing situation harder to describe accurately to support.
Check the consequences before leaving or clearing
When someone leaves, their account remains but their access to the shared pack ends. Contributed dogs and records stay in the household. If the owner leaves, another member takes over; the final member takes the pack back into their account when the household closes1.
The account walkthrough distinguishes clearing reads, clearing reads and photos, and deleting the account. Their effects differ, including in a household. It also offers Download my data, whose export references photos without embedding the image files5. Read the relevant confirmation before choosing a control.
An export can report incomplete cloud material when the connection is weak, so check its completeness notes. Signing out of a secured account clears the device copy without erasing the account; pending captures on that device can be lost5. Let those finish before changing devices.
Before the next handover, open the shared dog together and check that you are looking at the same record. Agree who will add the next meal or walk, then get back to the dog waiting by the door.
Sources and further reading8 sources
The small numbers in the article link to the source behind each fact. Sources open on their own websites.