Tips for finding your pawfect borrower

You’ve created your profile, high paws and welcome to BorrowMyDoggy! So what’s next? Finding a borrower of course! So how can you go about finding your pawfect match?

Your profile

Your profile is where borrowers can learn about your dog's habits, quirks, and unique needs, and of course look at pictures of your gorgeous pooch! It’s important your profile has plenty of useful info on it, so to make your profile as pawsome as possible, check out our top tips for you and your doggy’s perfect profile.

Adjusting your search filters can often help you find a pawfect borrower.

You can sort your searches by nearest, newest, last updated or most active. You can often find those looking for a match by sorting by “Most active”, “Newest” or “Last updated”.

We recommend filtering your search by newest or most active to increase your chances of finding a borrower who is still actively looking for a match and still available.

Our newest members may not have activity showing on their profile just yet but may be more active on the platform as they have recently signed up!

If you are wanting to find a borrower that’s available at a particular time, like weekday evenings or weekends, you can tick the boxes on ‘Available on’.

You can also search for borrowers who have previously owned or care for a dog, and/or those that have a garden or outdoor space.

Remember, borrowers sign up because they cannot have a dog of their own for various reasons. This may be because they don’t have a garden or haven't had a dog before and want to gain some experience.

But don't let this put you off reaching out to them as a potential match if they don't have either of those things.

Borrowing a dog and learning all about your dog on a ‘Welcome Woof’ is a great way for borrowers to gain that experience they may be looking for. You can discuss the arrangement and these details further on your ‘Welcome Woof’ as they may be happy to take your dog for a little walk whenever they need to go out if they don’t have a garden.

Activity Scale

Our activity scale is a good way to see how often members are on the site and replying to messages. But don’t rule out potential borrowers if they aren’t very active though, it might just be that they haven’t been sent a message recently.

Liking

Whenever a borrower likes your dog, basic or premium, depending on your notification settings, you will be sent an email to let you know. When you log in to your profile and go to ‘Dashboard’, you can filter your activity to show Likes, to see all of the borrowers that have added your dog to their likes.

A ‘like’ is a member letting you know that they are interested in your profile. We recommend sending them a message back to say thank you and if you think they'd be a suitable match, ask if they'd be interested in meeting your dog to get to know each other.

When you are on a borrower’s profile you can also Like them, to show that you think their profile is top of the pups.

Go premium

Basic memberships on BorrowMyDoggy are an important way for new members to have a look around and see if there are people they want to message in their area. Once members decide they want to send messages, and meet some lovely borrowers, they need to become Premium members.

Why do I need to be a premium member?

Safety is our top priority at BorrowMyDoggy. Premium membership includes safety verification, insurance (for both the dog and third party) and access to our 24/7 Vet Line.

So to keep our community safe, you can’t message or meet anyone until you’re a premium member and have all this set up. The fee also helps cover our operation expenses, to keep our pawsome community up and running. Be sure to remember that this is the only cost involved, as borrowers don’t charge to look after your dog.

Not only can you message borrowers with your premium membership, but because they know you’ve been through all the safety checks, and the insurance and vetline are in place, borrowers are much more likely to message you too!

To become premium, log in to your profile and click ‘Go Premium now’.

Messages

There’s no rule on BorrowMyDoggy about who messages first, sometimes it’s a borrower who messages an owner first, sometimes an owner to a borrower. Most members find their messages a mix of both. So you don’t need to wait around for borrowers to see your new profile and message you, you can message borrowers as soon as you become a premium, verified member.

To start, take a look through your local borrowers and message any who you think you’d like to meet your dog. To do this, go to their profile, and click ‘‘Send message’ on desktop and ‘Message’ on the app. If you think they would be a good match, you should also contact borrowers that have favourited your pooch, as they are already interested.

Remember that only premium members can message. If the borrower is a basic member they’ll need to complete our safety checks in order to personally reply, and although this can sometimes take a little while, borrowers often do go premium and get in touch after receiving a message from a dog they’d love to spend time with. You can tell if a borrower is premium from the gold ‘Premium’ banner and crown.

If you want any top tips on the pawfect message, we’ve written a guide on how to write the perfect messages to borrowers.

The ‘Welcome Woof’

Once you've messaged with a pawtential match, got to know them really well and feel comfortable, you’re ready to schedule your first meet and greet, or as we call it, the ‘Welcome Woof’.

This is a wagtastic opportunity for an owner, borrower, and dog to get to know each other better, and share important details. Find out more about the ‘Welcome Woof’.

We hope this helps you find your pawfect match, but if you need any help check out our FAQs or contact our help team.