Pet owners – Spotwag helps you find friends to watch your cuddly companions

We pet owners are often times caught in a dilema. Do you run yourself broke by paying for a boarding kennel, or do you just not go on the trip? Sadly, even the best of kennels is usually a scary, unfamiliar place for your furry friend. Spotwag thinks that there’s a better option, and it lies with your friends.

Launching today, Spotwag uses your network of Facebook friends to find people who would like to spend time with your pet. Instead of exchanging money, Spotwag suggests that pet owners provide a “Gift of Thanks” in return. According to co-founder Chris Wake, “sometimes it’s cash, but quite often it’s a nice bottle of wine, a gift certificate for dinner or simply a returned favor when that friend needs something.”

What’s more interesting to me is that Wake says that owners are finding friends who are willing to watch pets for free, simply because the friends like spending time with a companion. One of the early users, in fact, found 4 friends in a 24 hour period who would watch her dog on 4 separate occasions.

Throughout the site you’ll notice that the tone of the text is very conversational. It’s done purposely, in hopes to further break down the walls of discomfort about asking your friends for favors. But it’s worth noting that, according to what Spotwag has found, many people would love to have a pet for a few hours or a couple of days, so they’re offering up their sitter services quite willingly.

Wake tells me that Spotwag consists of a mere two-person team at the moment, with just himself and an engineer. The project has been completely bootstrapped thus far, and is in search of a seed round to get to its next milestones. The market is getting interesting, with offerings such as Dog Vacay and Rover, but Spotwag is the first service that we’ve seen that focuses on people you know rather than defaulting back to strangers.

➤ Spotwag

Just taking a run? Jogs for Dogs can help you make a few bucks while you’re at it.