Answers about Dogs Social and Antwerp dog parks

Dogs Social is a free web app that shows which dogs are checked in at Antwerp dog parks right now, and which ones plan to arrive later, so you can judge the trip before you pick up the leash. It runs in a phone browser and carries all 96 dog parks from Stad Antwerpen's own register of dog zones.

Open app.dogs.social in your phone browser and the Antwerp map loads straight away. Tap any park pin to see which dogs are checked in there. Once you are at a park, describe your dog and check in, so the next owner opening the map has a reason to walk over.

Dogs Social covers Antwerp, Belgium only, with 96 dog parks from the city's open-data portal. It does not cover other cities, beaches or trails. You can browse the Antwerp parks on this site, and open the app map to see who is at one right now. More cities are a plan, not something you can use today.

Open the Dogs Social map and tap an Antwerp dog park. The park lists the dogs checked in there now and, separately, the dogs whose owners plan to arrive later. Looking needs no check-in and no account. Presence comes from owners checking in, so it is a signal, not a guarantee that a dog will still be there.

A Dogs Social check-in is a short, self-reported signal that your dog is at a park now, or plans to arrive later. It reserves nothing, and a later plan does not promise the owner will turn up. You can extend a stay, check out, confirm a planned arrival or cancel it when plans change.

Dogs Social is a free web app. No account is needed to open the map, look at a park, check in or plan a later arrival. An account is needed for two things: uploading a dog photo and saving a bio. Without one, your dog stays tied to the browser you used.

Other Dogs Social users see information about your dog, not about you as a human. Depending on what you provide, they can see the dog's name, photo, size, sex, age group, social style and short bio, along with the check-in timing. They do not see your real name, phone number, address or live location.

Dogs Social takes its park facts from Stad Antwerpen's open-data portal, the city's own register of dog zones: all 96 active zones, none added by hand and none left out. Where Dogs Social checked a park and found a different value, it corrected it, and the park page marks that value with a pencil icon. Live presence is separate and comes from owners checking in.

Not yet. Dogs Social currently works as a mobile-first web app in a phone browser, and it can be added to a phone's home screen as a PWA. There is no iOS or Android store app today, so there are no App Store or Play Store downloads. A native phone app is one future roadmap theme, not a current capability.

An empty park is still worth knowing about: it tells you the trip can wait, or that another hour suits your dog better. Dogs Social cannot conjure up dogs, and a quiet park might just mean nobody checked in. Check in yourself and you become the reason somebody else walks over.

Dogs Social takes its parks from Stad Antwerpen's register of dog zones, so every pin is a zone the city officially lists and none is missing. Google Maps mixes official zones with places people added themselves. Dogs Social also shows which dogs are checked in now and who plans to arrive later. Directions still open in Google Maps from a park.

Email feedback@dogs.social, or send an idea from the What's next page on dogs.social. Both reach the Dogs Social owner privately, and nothing you send is published. On the idea form a reply address is optional, and it is only used to reply.

In Antwerp a dog may run off-leash only inside the city's designated dog zones (hondenloopzones). Stad Antwerpen's rules require a leash everywhere else on public ground, including streets, parks and nature areas. Dogs Social lists every one of those dog zones, from the city's open data.

A Dogs Social check-in lasts as long as you choose when you check in, from 15 minutes to an hour and a half, and other owners see when your dog is expected to leave. You can extend the stay or check out early. When the time runs out, the check-in ends on its own. A later arrival can be planned 30 minutes to 3 hours ahead.