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Infographic in DIN A4 format titled “Dog Network – Decentralized. Local. For Dogs and Their Owners.” The infographic visualizes the concept of a decentralized dog platform based on ActivityPub. At the center, a network diagram connects several <br />independent communities (e.g., animal shelters, dog training schools, local communities, or breed groups) that communicate with one another via a federated infrastructure. On the right, a smartphone app with a map view is shown as an example. Surrounding <br />it are potential features: dog profiles, walks and meetups, warnings about hazards and poisoned bait, dog parks and local spots, missing or found dogs, as well as groups and discussion forums. Other sections explain data protection, data sovereignty, <br />self-hosting, open-source technologies, and an optional, privacy-friendly meeting mode that uses intentionally imprecise location data. The design primarily uses shades of green and natural tones, featuring illustrations of dog owners, dogs, maps, and <br />network symbols. The graphic serves as an initial concept sketch and does not represent a finished product or final design.

2026-07-23 13:47:42

kranzkrone@quasselkopf.de

[Decentralized, federated platform for dog owners]

I haven’t been able to get this idea out of my head for a while now. 😩😁

Why are there centralized platforms for dog owners—but no open, decentralized alternative? 🤔

What if clubs, animal shelters, dog training schools, or local communities could run their own instances while still being interconnected, based on ActivityPub, similar to the Fediverse? 😃

Possible features could include:
🐶 Dog profiles
🚶 Walks & meetups
📍 Dog parks & local spots
⚠️ Poisoned bait and hazard alerts
🔎 Missing & found dogs

The focus would be on data sovereignty, local communities, and open standards instead of a centralized platform. 😉

Attached is a preliminary concept diagram to make the idea more tangible.

I’d be interested to know:
Would you use something like this, or even help build it? ⁉️ 🙄

#Fediverse #ActivityPub #OpenSource #SelfHosting #Dogs #DogLovers #AnimalWelfare #Community #Idea

2026-07-23 16:14:45

pete

pete@me.solved.cz

I have 16 dogs and 7 programmers. So yes to both.

But we are in Vietnam and I'm not touching any GenAI.

2026-07-23 17:09:26

veroandi_br

veroandi@connexia.hibiol.eu

@Stefan

I'm not sure people need to build a new piece of software for that, I guess a fork of Mastodon or Friendica could work. (maybe Bonfire but I haven't tested it) The advantage of Friendica comparing to Mastodon is that people could build plugins, so there could be specific features for this pet community that do not need to be a new platform but a plugin in something that already exists.
I guess community for pets have a huge potential and could even have private pet business interested in creating instances to offer to their clients.

2026-07-23 22:52:50

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@veroandi_br @Stefan Quite a bit of it could be done with Hubzilla as well. In fact, it's modular and extensible, too, and its number of third-party extensions is practically growing as we speak.

Moderated groups, it has them right now, and they can be moderated by any member anywhere on Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) or Forte.

Profile for your dog, well, you can create as many channels on one account as you want. Each channel amounts to one Mastodon or Friendica account, feature-wise, only that it isn't its own login, and you can switch between channels without logging out and back in again. You can have one account/one login on one hub, but one channel for yourself, one for each one of your dogs, and if you want to run a forum, that's another channel on the same account.

Maybe it's even possible to build appropriate third-party apps that tie in with the already existing OpenStreetMap app.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Hubzilla