There are two kinds of pet business. The first asks every client the same questions every visit. What is your dog's name again? Any allergies? Is he alright with the dryer? The second already knows. They greet the dog by name, skip the bits that make him nervous, and have the owner's preferences on screen before the appointment even starts.
The only difference between them is what they do with information. Not how much they collect. What they do with it.
Custom Fields and Forms in Petboost exist for exactly this. Not to bury your team in paperwork, but to capture the handful of details that turn a transaction into a relationship. Here are five ways to use them so every pet feels like a regular, even on day one.
Two tools that work as one
Custom fields add your own data points to any pet or owner profile: text, dropdowns, yes/no toggles, numbers, and dates. They sit on the profile next to the built-in Petprint details, and you choose who sees each one: staff only, visible to the client, or editable by the client.
Intake forms are questionnaires you send before an appointment. They can auto-send by SMS and email the moment a booking is made, or appear inline while a client books online.
The part that matters: a form field can link to a custom field. When the client answers, the answer writes straight onto the pet's profile. Collect it once and it is there for every appointment, for every staff member, for good. No re-typing, no second system.
1. Remember what keeps each pet calm
Few things build loyalty faster than a pet that goes home happy, and that starts with knowing what stresses each animal before it walks in. Create staff-only fields for the things that affect handling, and the whole team works from the same playbook:
- Grooming: a "Sensitive areas" multi-select (face, paws, tail, sanitary), a "Dryer tolerance" dropdown, and a "Handling notes" text field. The groomer knows to skip the high-velocity dryer on the nervous spaniel before they ever switch it on.
- Daycare: "Play style" (rough, gentle, prefers humans), "Resource guards" yes/no, and "Recall reliability". Your team groups dogs safely from the first morning, not after an incident.
- Boarding: "Settles at night" yes/no, "Comfort item", and "Separation triggers". Overnight staff replicate the dog's home routine instead of guessing at 10pm.
- Dog walking: "Lead reactivity" and "Off-lead recall". The walker picks the right route and the right group before they clip the lead on.
Keep these Staff Only. The owner does not need to see "reactive on approach, muzzle required". Your team does.
2. Find out what a great result looks like, in the owner's words
Plenty of complaints come down not to bad work but to the gap between what the owner pictured and what they got. Close that gap by asking first.
- Grooming: a "Preferred length" dropdown and a free-text "The look I am after" field. "Short but not shaved" means very different things to different people. Get it on the record before the clippers come out.
- Training: a "What I want to achieve" textarea and a dropdown of priorities (recall, loose-lead walking, reactivity, manners). The first session starts on the owner's actual goal.
- Daycare: "Why daycare?" (socialisation, burning energy, company while I work). It shapes how you talk about their dog's day at pickup.
- Boarding: "What does a good stay look like for you?" Some owners want a daily photo. Others just want a quiet "all good". Knowing which is which is the whole game.
3. Get every health and safety fact on file, once
Allergies, medications, dietary needs, vet details, vaccination dates. The non-negotiables. Collect them in a form on the first booking, link them to profile fields, and they are there permanently.
- A Date field for "Vaccination due" means you can catch a lapsed C5 before a boarding stay, not on arrival.
- A Textarea for "Medications and dosages" travels with the pet to every boarding night and daycare day.
- A Text field for "Emergency vet" and another for "Regular vet" means nobody is digging through old emails in a crisis.
This is identical across grooming, daycare, boarding, walking, and training. The duty of care does not change. The admin does: collect it once instead of every single visit.
4. Personalise the small touches that earn loyalty
The details that have nothing to do with the service are often the ones clients remember.
- A Client Visible "Allocated groomer" or "Favourite handler" field, so the owner knows their dog is with someone familiar.
- A "Favourite treat" or "Favourite toy" field. The daycare that hands Bella her squeaky pineapple on arrival has earned a loyal customer.
- A Date field for the pet's birthday gives you a reason to reach out that has nothing to do with selling.
- A "Photo consent" yes/no, so you know exactly which dogs you can post to Instagram and which you cannot.
None of this is essential to the groom or the stay. All of it tells the owner you see their pet as more than a booking.
5. Let clients keep their own details current
Information goes stale. New phone number, new vet, a puppy that grew out of its anxiety. The fix is to stop being the only person who can update it.
- Set fields like "Preferred pickup time", "Emergency contact", or "Current vet" to Client Editable. The owner updates them from their portal and your records stay accurate with zero effort from you.
- For things that genuinely change visit to visit, use a short every-appointment form: "Has anything changed since last time?" with a yes/no and a textarea. It auto-sends on every booking for the service you choose.
This works for any vertical. The grooming client flags a new lump to check around. The boarding client updates the feeding amount. The walker hears about the sore paw before the walk, not after.
The information ends up where you actually work
Collecting data only helps if your team sees it at the right moment. In Petboost:
- Forms auto-send via SMS and email when a booking is created, or appear inline while the client books online. No chasing.
- Linked answers write straight onto the pet or owner profile, so the next groomer, walker, or overnight carer sees them without asking.
- You can see at a glance whether a client has completed their form before they arrive, and filter responses by who still needs to.
The clipboard asks the same questions forever. A system remembers.
One profile per pet, not per household
A family with three dogs is three different animals with three different temperaments. Because fields live on each pet's profile, the anxious one, the bouncy one, and the senior each carry their own notes. Generic form tools treat that family as a single row in a spreadsheet. Your business does not work that way, and neither should your data.
Start with five fields
You do not need to map out forty data points this afternoon. Pick the five that would change how tomorrow's appointments go: one calming note, one goal, one health fact, one personal touch, and one thing the client can keep updated. Build those today.
Custom Fields and Forms are available on all paid Petboost plans. Start a 14-day free trial or book a demo to see it in action, and read the deeper walkthrough in Digital Intake Forms for Pet Businesses.