Your dog's a star. Only if you want them to be.
Plain English, no fine-print tricks. Here's what we collect, who can see it, and the switches you control. Last updated July 18, 2026.
The short version
Member pups live behind a sign-in. The public site never shows your dog, your name, or your neighborhood — the only dogs on public pages are shelter dogs (they need the exposure) and generic photos. Inside the club, you decide whether other members see your pup at all, and you can flip that switch any time.
What we collect
About you: your name, email address, neighborhood, and the shelter you chose to support.
About your pup: their name, breed, age, the one-liner and story you wrote, personality tags, and any photos you upload.
Payments: handled entirely by Stripe. We never see or store your card number — we keep only a customer reference and your subscription status.
Cookies: one essential session cookie so you stay signed in. No ad trackers, no selling data, full stop.
Who can see your pup
Everything about your pup is members-only. Signed-in members in the club can see your pup in the local pack, personality matching, and — if they're picked — the monthly Local Spotlight.
The monthly Featured Pup goes a step further (newsletter profile, print keepsake). That only ever happens through your own nomination — nominating is how you say yes.
Shelter dogsare the exception: they're shown publicly on purpose, because visibility is how they find homes.
Your controls
The sharing switch. In your account, turn off “Show my pup to other members” and your pup disappears from the pack, matching, spotlights, and features. Their profile page becomes visible to you alone.
Email preferences.Newsletter and spotlight emails are opt-out in your account. Sign-in links always send — that's how the door works.
Your pup's page. You write the story and choose the photos. Edit or remove them whenever you like.
Leaving, and what happens to your data
Leave the club from your account and we cancel billing, delete your pup's profile, and detach your name and email from the club. If you want uploaded photos scrubbed from storage too, email us and we'll do it by hand — happily, if a little sadly.
The services we rely on
Your data is processed by a short list of vendors doing exactly one job each: Stripe (payments), Resend (email delivery), Vercel (hosting and photo storage), and Neon (database). We don't share member data with anyone else — not partners, not advertisers, not ever.
Questions?
Write to info@thepupclub.org — a human reads it, usually with a dog on their feet.