Dog owners planning a walk now have a weather service built specifically for their pets. Pawcast by Weather.pet, created by entrepreneur Clay Bartlett, generates forecasts at the level of a dog's head and paws, including temperature readings for asphalt, grass, and concrete and adjustments based on breed, body size, and coat length.
The service issues tens of thousands of reports to users each month. Between late-September and October, Pawcast sent 28,000 alerts to more than 2,000 pet parents in all 50 states and DC. Each alert includes a straight temperature reading alongside a "Dog Feel°" figure designed to reflect what a dog actually experiences.
Bartlett described the gap between air temperature and ground surface temperature as a serious safety concern. In an email to Good News Network, he recounted standing outside a pet conference in Fort Worth with an infrared thermometer pointed at the asphalt. The surface read 131°F while the air was 98°F, a 33-degree difference that he said could cause burned paws even over a short walk.
"That's why our team of veterinarians, nurses, and dog trainers created Pawcast by Weather.pet—because the temperature that our dogs feel can be wildly different from the way that you or I feel temperature," Bartlett told Good News Network.
The project grew out of an earlier venture. Bartlett and his veterinary team spent eight years building TeleTails, a veterinary telehealth platform that now serves 1.5 million pet parents. According to Bartlett, the idea for Pawcast emerged when the company's co-founder and Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr. Hilary Jones, observed a rise in weather-related pet safety questions.
"We realized there was a massive information gap, with most veterinary literature on the topic reverting to a stale grid from 1998," Bartlett told Good News Network.
To close that gap, the veterinary team collected thousands of surface temperature readings across the country over the past year, measuring asphalt, concrete, and grass in cities, suburbs, and rural areas. Those measurements informed a model of how heat and cold reach a dog at ground level.
"Those readings became the foundation for our model of how heat and cold reach a dog at ground level. Together, we've produced a dog-focused temperature reading that accounts for each dog's breed, coat, age, and weight: our Dog Feel°, and route-specific estimates for the walk itself," Bartlett told Good News Network.
The resulting forecasts are intended to help owners plan walks and outings with better information about conditions at ground level, where paws make contact and where a dog's head sits relative to the air. The Pawcast app can be downloaded through the App Store and Google Play Store.
