You Can Check How Pet-Friendly a Restaurant or Hotel Is With This New App

(SPOT.ph) Filipinos love their pets, but bringing them around can be quite the stressful experience. That pet-friendly establishments are the exception more than the norm says a lot. Enter Petagon, the ultimate pet management platform for hands-on pet owners. This local app combines a comprehensive pet profile, an extensive pet directory, and personalized pet care assistance all in one convenient place.

Petagon is the brainchild of Chio Uy and Dione Gan, two 'gradwaiting' information technology entrepreneurship students at the Ateneo de Manila University, who were on a mission to solve a “very personal problem.” At home, Uy has seven dogs, while Gan has twelve dogs. Both struggle with the challenge of taking pets with them from one place to another, preparing various documentation with no guarantee if a location is actually pet-friendly. Every pet owner knows this too well.

The app started out as an entry to a national start-up competition and ended up winning grand champion and being recognized as one of QBO’s Top 100 startups in 2022. That’s when the duo decided to push Petagon to its potential, first as a thesis project and later as a full-time pursuit.

“That’s when we thought, you know what? Let’s see where this goes,” Uy told SPOT.ph. “Now that things are getting clearer, we’re trying to scale this in a way we can change how pet care is being looked at in the Philippines. We’ve been bootstrapping the entire start-up ever since.”

Petagon was officially launched in January 2023. Together they formed a team of six, with Uy and Gan at the helm as developer and marketer, respectively. With the help of a junior level developer, they managed to turn a student project into a legitimate app with over 700 downloads (and counting) on the iOS and Android store.

Also read: The SPOT.ph Guide to Pets on Public Transport

Petagon: The ultimate pet-friendly app

There are three main features at Petagon: the Pet Profile, the Pet Directory, and Sumo.

Pet profile

The Petabase is a digital pet booklet that will contain the pet’s relevant information such as age, breed, and vaccination records. Each pet will receive a QR code that, when scanned, allows other people to access the pet’s information.

Pet owners can also upload each pet's breed certificate, pet IDs, and medical history.

The Petabase is yet to be honored at malls and other establishments, but Uy and Gan found that presenting the pet profiles give off “the effect of legitimacy,” as security guards are more likely to accept digital vaccination records over pieces of paper.

Thanks to Uy and Gan, pets are also now allowed inside open spaces at the Ateneo campus provided that the user shows the Petabase app to the guards. Prior to that, the process to bring pets inside the campus was inconvenient if not a pain to figure out.

Pet directory

There are currently over 800 pet-friendly places in Petagon's directory. What’s great about Petagon is that it’s not restricted to pet owners in Metro Manila. Tapping into provincial areas, Uy and Gan are constantly working towards its expansion to cover the entire country.

“That’s what really drives us with all this,” Uy said. “We just wanted to hang out with our pets more.”

Much like Wikipedia, any pet owner is free to add pet-friendly establishments in the directory, which will then be verified by Uy and Gan before it is put up on the app.

Specific requirements for pets to enter places are listed as well. You’ll see heart icons on the right side of every establishment, which can mean one of three things:

• Three hearts – observe general pet etiquette like keeping pets on a leash or in a diaper
• Two hearts – pet should be in a stroller (and it is likely that only small dog breeds are allowed)
• One heart – pet owners could be charged a high fee to bring pets in or be asked to muzzle pets

Pet care assistance

Many AI-powered applications have emerged since ChatGPT rose to prominence in 2022, but Sumo is arguably the first of its kind to use an AI chatbot to provide pet care assistance in the Philippines. It’s the newest feature on the Petagon app, having only launched in late May. Fun fact: Sumo is named after Uy’s senior dog!

As a whole, Uy said Sumo is “pretty reliable, but there are limitations.” Some limitations are intentional, as Sumo is programmed to only answer pet-related concerns. 

Sumo isn’t meant to serve as a substitute for professional veterinary care though, which is why they prohibited the chatbot from providing medical prescriptions. Instead, it is trained to provide first aid instructions. Sumo can speak in English, Filipino, as well as Bisaya and Ilonggo. Uy said: “It’s not as fluent as the native tongue…but you’ll get the point. It’ll get the message across.”

The best part? Sumo is trained to give personalized recommendations based on what’s recorded in the Petabase. For example, Uy said Sumo can gather answers that could relate to the pet’s background. A dog could be smelly for reasons linked to his breed, for example.

However, Sumo is part of Petagon's paid version, which can be unlocked for P100 a month. Subscribers are also entitled to exclusive vouchers and perks from Petagon partners.

Petagon remains a work in progress for now. Uy and Gan are working on building more partnerships in the pet care ecosystem to include veterinarians, pet shops, groomers, and pet insurers in the app.

Petagon is available for download on iOS and Android.

Also read: 10 Animal Shelters and Organizations Where You Can Adopt, Not Shop