Safety
How Dog Meets Dog keeps you and your dog safe — verification, reporting, and meetup best practices.
Profile verification
Verification is optional. A blue checkmark means the profile passed Dog Meets Dog's profile-match check, which compares:
- A government-issued photo ID with the profile
- A live selfie for liveness detection and comparison with the profile photo
The badge indicates only that the submitted ID and selfie matched the profile. It is not background screening: Dog Meets Dog does not screen users against external records or verify their conduct.
Reporting and blocking
Tap the report control on a dog profile, message, owner photo, or park report. Choose one of these reasons:
- Inappropriate content
- Harassment
- Spam
- Fake profile
- Underage user
- Other
You can add details of up to 500 characters. You cannot report your own content, and submitting the same report again returns an already-reported result rather than creating a duplicate. Reports are moderation signals, not a promise that the other person has been screened or verified.
Blocking a user is applied atomically and severs matching and messaging in both directions. It prevents contact and visibility while active, and the other user is not notified. Manage blocked users in Settings; unblocking is explicit and can restore a match that is eligible to be reset.
Safe meetup guidelines
When meeting a match for the first time:
- Meet in public — choose a busy dog park or café, not a private residence
- Tell a friend — share your meetup location and time with someone you trust
- Stay in the app — keep messaging in-app until you are comfortable
- Bring a leash — even for off-leash parks, keep your dog leashed until you have assessed the other dog's temperament
- Trust your instincts — leave early if anything feels off
Dog safety
- Confirm the other dog's vaccination status before close contact
- Start with a parallel walk before allowing off-leash play
- Watch for stress signals (tucked tail, whale eye, growling) and separate early if needed
- Carry water and waste bags for both dogs
Data and communication
- Chats are scoped to the participants in an active match.
- Match settings let you control owner-photo and check-in sharing.
- You can report, mute, unmatch, or block from the match settings.