DoggoDuty gives kids a virtual puppy to care for every day for six months before they get a real one. The walks are real, the jobs follow a real dog's day, the money is pretend but the prices aren't, and if they miss a day the streak starts over. I designed and built it for my own kids, and for the parent who has to decide when they're ready.
My 9-year-old twins have wanted a dog for a long time. They promise they'll walk it, feed it and clean up after it, and I believe they mean it. I also know they've never had to do it at 6:45 on a rainy school morning, every morning, with no days off.
Instead of saying no, I wanted to give them a way to show me, and to see for themselves what a dog really takes: the time, the money, the mess, and the days they'd rather do anything else.
Everything the pup needs is based on real guidance, not guesses: how often puppies need to go out, how much they eat as they grow, when they need shots, how to brush teeth, how to teach "sit." I used sources like the American Kennel Club and veterinary guides, and the shop uses typical US store and vet prices.
Then I designed for the people actually using it: kids reading on a phone. One job per card, big buttons, plain words, and a tap-to-hear glossary for harder words. Every rule that matters, like the schedule and the budget, sits behind a parent PIN.
The app opens on a simple splash, then a welcome that says what's at stake in two lines: care for a virtual pup every day for six months, and miss a day and the streak starts over.
Kids choose a puppy, a young dog or an adult, and each choice is honest about the work. A puppy means more potty trips, four small meals and vet shots every three weeks. They pick the coat, the eyes and the collar, name their dog, and see what it costs each month before they say yes.
Real dogs don't take days off, so neither does the streak: every must-do job, every day, for 182 days. Miss one and it's back to Day 1. When life gets in the way, a kid can ask a parent to cover a day. The streak survives, but nobody earns points.
Mornings are where it gets real. The pup's alarm can be snoozed twice. A third snooze and the puppy has an accident on the rug, every kid loses points because they share the dog, and a clean-up job jumps to the top of the list. Walks are real too: on a phone, the app tracks the route with GPS, the pup stops to mark trees and hydrants, and every poop has to be picked up and taken to a trash can.
Jobs follow a real day: the walk before breakfast, lunch handled by a grown-up while the kids are at school, and evening jobs locked until their time, so nobody can finish the whole day before the bus comes.
The jobs kids would rush can't be faked. Brushing only counts while the phone moves like a brush, gently: shaking it fast doesn't count. Reading to the pup takes as long as reading the story out loud, and any harder word can be tapped to hear how it's said and what it means.
About every two weeks, the pup shows a warning sign: an itchy ear, a skipped meal, a limp, a chocolate bar eaten off the floor. The kids have to notice it and choose what to do, and they learn why. Serious signs mean a sick visit, paid from the dog's budget, just like real life.
Puppies and young dogs get a short training lesson each day, following the AKC's 80 percent rule: once the pup gets a move right four times out of five, it's time to add the word. The pup misses sometimes and improves with practice, so a trick takes about two weeks, the way real training does.
Each month the dog gets a pretend budget that the parent sets. Food, poop bags, stain cleaner, vet visits and haircuts come out of it at real prices. Food arrives the next day, so running out means a more expensive store run, and ordering ahead earns points.
Toys and treats are wants, paid for with points the kids earn by doing jobs. Toys wear out in about a month, the way real ones get chewed up, so the kids decide whether a new one is worth it.
The parent dashboard is where I get the honest picture: today's jobs and who did them, the week's schedule (including which home the kids are at, for families who live in two), the dog's budget, and every walk with its time and distance. A walk that barely moved for its length gets flagged.
Parents approve cover days, plan trips with a pet sitter or a dog hotel, and set the rules. The kids can see everything they need, but only a parent can change it.
I used Claude throughout: to build the interface in code, to pull real guidance on puppy care, training and vet costs, and to turn an idea into a working screen I could try on my phone the same day.
I kept the judgment for myself. When a number didn't come from a real source, I asked for one, and when a screen didn't work for a 9-year-old, I changed it. Automated tests check the rules, like the snooze limit, the training progress and the job order, so I could keep changing the product without breaking what already worked.
DoggoDuty is a web app built with Next.js and designed for phones, with GPS tracking for real walks and the phone's motion sensor for brushing. The pup's illustrations are recolored in code to match the fur and eyes the kids choose.
Building it myself meant every design decision was tested on a working product, not in a mockup.
The next stage is accounts and a shared database, so every phone in the family sees the same dog, plus native apps so the alarm can ring like a real one.
After that comes reading-speed tracking for kids still in elementary school: as they read to the pup out loud, the phone measures words read correctly per minute, with speech recognized on the device itself. Only the parent sees the progress, so reading to the dog stays fun. Then a readiness report at the end of the six months, and more of a dog's life: socializing, nail trims and bath day.
"Can we get a dog?" usually ends in a promise. DoggoDuty turns the promise into six months of proof, and teaches what a dog really needs along the way.
It also reflects how I work: start from a real problem, ground every rule in real data, and design for the people who will actually use it, even when they're nine.
I design and build products for real people, from the first conversation to working software.
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