Until now, a dog that was sold or given away left with nothing. You had a "Sold" status and a free-text note; its new musher had a dog page to rebuild by hand, vaccinations and weigh-ins included. Above all, the dog arrived with an EMPTY history. To the load model, a dog running 60 km a week then looked as fresh as a puppy, and its first runs with its new musher pushed it straight into overload. The request came from a musher, and it applies to everyone whose dogs change kennels: when both kennels use MushMate, the dog now leaves with its logbook and its career.
A link you send yourself
On the dog's page, Sell or give away by link…: on the web in the Profile tab (Dog management), on the phone in "Edit". Only the kennel owner can do it. You choose how the dog leaves — sold, given away or rehomed — and Create the link gives you an address, valid for 30 days and a single acceptance. Share it by WhatsApp, text or email, or copy it.
The receiving kennel opens the link in a browser. It sees the dog's name, your kennel, and what comes with the dog, as numbers: "48 runs and races — 1,230 km —, 3 vaccinations, 2 vet visits…". Before saying yes, it also sees any open injuries and ongoing treatments. Without a MushMate account, it creates one and its kennel along the way. It gives the dog its name there, and receives it.
What each side sees
The receiving kennel finds a dog in its pack, with:
- identity, microchip and pedigree;
- the logbook: vaccinations, vet visits, treatments, injuries, heats, weigh-ins and body condition;
- the dog's participation level;
- its whole training career, one line per run or race.
On the dog's page, a Career before arriving card says where the dog comes from, how many runs and races, how many kilometres, and between which dates.
You then read "Left with their logbook on 3 October 2026, to Lake Kennel". That's all: the date and the kennel's name, nothing of the dog's life there. The dog takes the chosen status in your kennel when the other kennel accepts, not before, and keeps its whole history.
What never leaves:
- your notes, at every level;
- vet costs and insurance;
- the GPS tracks of your runs (they show your trails) and the other dogs that ran alongside;
- runs imported from Strava, which Strava's agreement only lets us show to the person who imported them. The other kennel's page counts them, so it knows they exist.
What it doesn't do
- It doesn't move the dog. It's a copy: you keep your logbook and your statistics, the other kennel has its own.
- It doesn't keep the two logbooks in sync. The copy is made on the day the other kennel accepts. Whatever happens afterwards, on either side, stays on that side.
- It only works between two MushMate kennels. For a buyer without the app, there is still the "Sold" status and your departure note.
- It writes to no one. MushMate doesn't send the link: you pass it on yourself.
- It can't be accepted from the phone app. The link opens in a browser; the dog then reaches the phone at the next sync.
- It doesn't hand over a guest dog. A dog loaned to you by another kennel belongs to that kennel: it's theirs to hand over.
Lending a dog between two kennels, with its runs coming back when the loan ends, is the next piece of work.
The choices we made
- The whole career, summarised. One line per run: the date, the distance THIS dog ran (if it was dropped, its own distance), elevation gain, surface, intensity, how it felt, and the team size. Not the track: it would show where you train.
- The team size travels with each run. In its new kennel, the dog is alone on its page. Without that number, every received run would count as if it had pulled the sled alone, and its load would be off by a factor of eight. So the model reads the real team. What doesn't travel, its position in the team and the track profile, makes the received load close to yours, not identical.
- Its earlier kilometres don't inflate the new kennel's. They live apart: in the load model, so the dog's fitness starts from its real history, and on its page. Not in Trophies, Stats or the club leaderboard: that kennel didn't run them.
- Creating the link doesn't send the dog away. A link nobody opens must not make the dog vanish from your pack. It leaves when the other kennel accepts.
- The link works once, and can be revoked. It's a key: anyone holding it can receive the dog. A link sent by mistake is revoked in one tap, and creating a new one revokes the previous one. Only the owner sees it: a handler or a vet in your kennel can't read the code.