Privacy policy
Last updated 30 September 2026
Plain version. Boarding facilities use Growhound to run their bookings. If you are a pet owner, the facility you booked with decides what is collected and why; we hold it for them. We never sell anything. Card numbers never reach our servers. To have your details removed, ask the facility, or email us and we will pass it on.
Who we are
Growhound is booking and management software for boarding kennels, catteries, daycares and groomers. Contact us at growhoundcrm.com/contact.
There are two relationships here and they matter. For a facility’s own account, we decide what we collect and are responsible for it. For a pet owner’s details, the facility decides, and we process on their instructions. If you are a pet owner, the facility is your first port of call.
What we collect
From pet owners, when a facility takes a booking
- Your name, email address and phone number.
- Your pet: name, species, breed, rough age, size, whether they can share, and anything you tell the facility about feeding, medication, allergies, behaviour, belongings, your vet and an emergency contact.
- Vaccination records, including any photograph of a vaccination card you send so the dates can be read off it.
- Your booking, what it costs, invoices, and whether they are paid. Not your card number— see Payments below.
- If you sign an agreement: what you typed, your IP address, your browser and device description, and the times you opened the page and completed each answer. This exists so the signature can be shown to be yours and the wording shown not to have changed.
- Emails and text messages sent to you about your booking, and your replies.
From facility staff
- Name, email address, role, and a password stored only as a salted hash.
- A sign-in cookie that lasts up to 14 days.
- Actions taken in the app, so a facility can see who did what.
What we do not collect
No advertising trackers, no third-party analytics, no cross-site profiling, and nothing about anyone under 16 knowingly. We do not sell or rent personal information to anybody, for any purpose.
Why we use it
- To take and run a booking, which is the contract you entered into with the facility.
- To check vaccination records against the day your pet goes home, which is a legitimate interest in animal welfare and the facility’s duty of care.
- To take payment and issue invoices, and to keep records an accountant can audit.
- To message you about your own booking: confirmations, reminders, an agreement to sign, an invoice, a missed call. Marketing messages, if a facility ever sends any, need your separate agreement and you can stop them at any time.
Texts and calls
Texts and calls relate to your booking or enquiry with that facility. We ask separately, on the booking and enquiry forms, before sending any: the box is never pre-ticked, it is optional, and leaving it unticked does not affect your booking.
Reply STOP to any text to stop receiving them, and HELP for help. Message and data rates may apply from your carrier. Stopping texts does not cancel your booking, and the facility can still reach you by email. To stop calls, tell the facility.
Payments
Card payments are handled by Stripeand go directly into the facility’s own Stripe account. Your card number, expiry and security code are entered into Stripe’s own form and never reach Growhound’s servers. We store only what the facility needs for its books: the amount, the date, the last few digits, and Stripe’s reference.
Who else sees it
These are the only third parties your details are sent to, and only for the reason given.
- The facility you booked with. They see everything you gave them.
- Stripe — to take card payments.
- Resend — to deliver email.
- Twilio — to deliver and receive text messages and calls.
- Anthropic— if you send a photograph of a vaccination card, the image is sent to Anthropic’s API to read the dates off it. It is used for that and nothing else, and is not used to train models.
- MongoDB Atlas and Vercel — where the data is stored and the app runs.
We also disclose information where the law requires it, and to a buyer if the business is ever sold, in which case this policy travels with it.
How long we keep it
For as long as the facility keeps its account, because a pet’s medical and boarding history is the point of the record. Invoices and payment records are kept for at least seven years, which is what tax authorities generally expect. A facility can delete a client or a pet at any time, and when a facility closes its account we delete or return its data within 90 days, except anything we are legally required to keep.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you can ask for a copy of your information, ask for it to be corrected or deleted, object to how it is used, or ask us to restrict it. California residents have the rights described in the CCPA, including the right not to be discriminated against for exercising them; we do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined there.
If you are a pet owner, ask the facility first, since the record is theirs. If you cannot reach them, contact us and we will pass it on and help.
Security
Traffic is encrypted in transit. Passwords are stored only as salted hashes. Pages that a customer reaches without an account are protected by a long random token rather than a guessable id. Nobody is perfectly secure, and we would rather say that than claim otherwise.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will change the date at the top and tell facilities before it takes effect.