Animal records
The digital animal record
Everything that follows an animal through your care — in one place, findable, even when your colleague is on holiday.
Tell us what you needAn animal's file is rarely in one place today. The vaccinations are in the booklet, the last treatment in an email from the vet practice, the behaviour note on a scrap of paper by the kennel, and the good photo on a volunteer's phone. Every single piece of information exists — just not at the same time and not for everyone. A digital animal record does not solve animal welfare, but it solves the searching: what happened to an animal is written where the next person will ask about it.
Core details that are right once
Species, breed, estimated age, chip number, neutering status, origin, intake date: the details every form asks for again and which today sit in three places, slightly differently in each. Once that data hangs on the record, everything downstream draws from it — the rehoming profile, the handover paperwork, the report to the authorities. The mistake it prevents is unspectacular and still happens constantly: a chip number that slips by one digit while being retyped.
The medical history as a timeline, not a pile
Vaccinations, worming, operations, medication, diagnoses, vet visits — in order, with dates, with what needs doing next. More important than the collection is what is due: the everyday question is rarely what an animal has had, but what is coming up and whether someone has missed it. A record that makes upcoming treatments visible takes that remembering out of one carer's head. That matters most where animals stay longer and their care is spread across many shifts and many people.
Capturing behaviour and everyday life
Whether a dog pulls on the lead, whether a cat is fine with children, whether someone barks at night, whether the animal backs away from men: this is the information a rehoming later stands or falls on, and it appears in passing, spread over weeks, among people who rarely share a shift. So observations belong where they happen — noted briefly, with a date and a name, without a form to fill in. Fifty small notes give you a more honest picture after two months than one questionnaire filled in once.
Photos that do not stay on a phone
The best picture of an animal is almost never the one from the intake form. It happens outdoors, on a good day, on a volunteer's phone — and stays there. When photos go straight onto the record, they are there when the rehoming profile gets written. As a side effect that settles a question many organisations find uncomfortable: who owns the pictures on your own website, and whether you may still use them once the person who took them has moved on.
Who is allowed to see what
An animal record does not only hold information about the animal. The reason for a surrender might be an illness, a separation or someone simply being overwhelmed — information about people that not everyone needs. So visibility is part of the record and not a setting anyone can forget. Volunteers see what they need for their work; sensitive notes stay with the people who keep them. More on where the data sits and who has access is on our page about privacy and security.
What that changes day to day
The question about the last worming is answered in seconds, not minutes.
Whoever covers the shift finds the record too, even when your colleague is away.
The rehoming profile comes out of what is already documented.
Upcoming treatments show up before they are overdue.
Behaviour notes from many shifts add up to one coherent picture.
The handover to the new owners is complete, not scraped together.
Taildesk is not in use anywhere yet — this page describes the planned feature set, not a running operation. Which fields an animal record really needs is something animal rescues know far better than we do, and that is exactly what we are asking right now. Nothing here is settled.
Common questions about animal records
Can we bring our existing data across?
Import is a duty for us, not an add-on — software that starts from zero never gets introduced in an organisation that is already running. Which formats it will handle in the end depends on what organisations work with today, and that is exactly what we are surveying.
Does the animal record replace our vet practice's software?
No, and it is not meant to. The practice keeps its own documentation. The record on your side holds what you need to know and pass on — appointments, findings, medication, history — so that this information does not only exist as an email in an inbox.
What happens to the record once an animal is rehomed?
It stays part of your history, because an animal can come back, and you need the history for follow-up visits and later questions. What the new owners get is an extract — not the internal part of the record.
What has to be in your animal record?
Every organisation documents differently, and any list we invent on our own will miss real practice somewhere. Tell us which fields you actually need.
Tell us what you need