MindfulCompawnion

A mental-health support app built on the powerful human/dog connection

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Inspiration

Before developing this project, I started by asking my family what real problems they faced, hoping to design something that could genuinely help. One concern that came up is that my younger sister goes to the dog park alone—sometimes at night. There are no lights or cameras there, and my mom often worries about her safety. I first considered creating a solution similar to SafeWalk, where users could notify others when they plan to visit a dog park so people could potentially attend the dog park in groups, thereby creating a safer and more social environment for both people and their pets. However, as I reflected more deeply, I realized my mom’s concern for my sister’s safety isn’t only about physical danger—it’s rooted in a much deeper loss. Not long ago we lost my youngest sibling, Graciella, who was only 14 years old, to suicide. That experience has irrevocably changed all of us, and it has altered the way I think about safety and well-being. It shifted my focus from simply protecting people in physical spaces to supporting emotional and mental health in meaningful ways. Although there are many mental health apps available, many feel superficial and do not seem to connect with the user in any kind of impactful way and are not truly transformative. I wanted to create something more intentional, something that promotes real emotional connection and healing. With this project, I also saw an opportunity to push myself technically, particularly by building a full web application, which I have never done before, while learning more advanced JavaScript. So, thinking of the encouragement I have had from a couple of professors I decided to push myself to try new coding while also exploring how AI tools could support me in my learning process while working on a project that really, at the heart, honors my little sister Graciella, and matters very much to me personally.

What it does

At the moment the website uses your location and shows local dog parks, as well as people who have signed in at those dog parks. In addition it provides mental and physical health facts & tips, “Wag-Worthy Wisdom”, from peer reviewed scientific studies, based on the human/dog connection. Those facts & tips will all come accompanied with a link, so that when a user taps on the fact/tip they can read the article or study from which the information is being drawn. There is also a list of citations under the FAQ section for any user who would like to follow up and gain more insight from a particular fact/tip.

How we built it

I started with a framework of a previous attempt to host a website that went poorly, and finished getting that to correctly be hosted on github, then converted that website into Mindful CompPAWnionship. Then read about how to get GPS locations as a website, and implemented that. Then shifted focus to figuring out how to have multiple users with unique sign-ins to connect to a database to use for personalization.

Challenges we ran into

The initial website creation went smoothly, and I was able to figure out how I was incorrectly getting the user’s GPS location. Once implementing a server to host the database for users things have gone poorly.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Functionally hosted website that gets GPS location and populates map with dog parks

What we learned

How to get GPS, how to publish API’s on render.com, how leaflet works generally, how to make a user sign-in framework

What's next for Mindful ComPAWnionship

The purpose of this app is to create support for people’s mental health and well-being through meaningful connections with their dog (or dogs with whom they interact). Therefore in future the app would recommend activities which could be engaged in with a user’s own dog, or the dog with which the user would be interacting. There are a great number of activities that can be recommended - from sitting on the couch, reading, to art, to yoga, to meditation, to knitting, to walking, to biking, to swimming, to boating, to sledding, etc with a dog. There will be shorter and longer activities as well as simpler or more complex activities to enable a broad range of use. The app will learn (through established measurable metrics) from each user’s emotional patterns through simple mood and energy inputs. Users will be able to log how they feel (and their energy levels) using multiple formats—such as colors, numeric scales, or expressive icons (happy, sad, frustrated, excited, etc.)—so they can communicate their emotional and physical state in a way that feels natural. The app will also track the dog’s mood and energy levels using similar metrics as entered by the user. The user will also, using measurable metrics, record how they and the dog feel after participating in recommended activities. Over time, the system will identify trends based on time of day, season, monthly cycles, and historical activity outcomes. Using this data, the app will personalize and adapt activity recommendations for the human and their dog—suggesting what is most likely to help based on what has previously worked at similar emotional or energy states. In addition, this app will have a bulletin board for places like dog parks and restaurants/cafes that allow dogs for people to post about meet-ups. There will be links to local groups/doctors who support and/or provide dog therapy for individuals. In addition, there will be a page set aside for books and podcasts that support mental health, specifically in relation to the human/dog connection.

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