Pet-care preparedness for the road.
PawPath is a mobile-friendly web application for campers, RV travelers, road-trippers, and other people traveling with pets. It is being developed to help users identify, evaluate, and save veterinary and emergency-care options near a destination before care is needed.
Google Maps and Apple Maps help people find places. PawPath helps people traveling with pets make a care plan and act quickly when something goes wrong.
The proof of concept now presents two functionally distinct workflows. Plan a Trip lets users enter trip details, choose Primary and Backup facilities, and save one active care plan locally in the browser. Find Care Now hides the planning form and focuses on immediate nearby-care search. When the normal nearby search contains no emergency or urgent-care option, PawPath also checks a 30-mile fallback radius and either adds the nearest qualifying listing or clearly explains that OpenStreetMap could not identify one.
A general map search can show nearby veterinary businesses, but travelers still have to determine:
- Which facility provides routine, urgent, or emergency care
- Whether the information is current or incomplete
- Which facility should be the primary option
- What the backup option should be
- How far care is from a campground or destination
- What number to call before driving
- Where essential pet information will be during an urgent situation
- What should be saved before entering an area with weak connectivity
PawPath is designed around that missing planning and emergency-readiness workflow.
The intended outcome is not simply a map search. The intended outcome is a saved pet-care plan for the trip.
Read the complete positioning in Why PawPath?.
PawPath is organized around two core experiences:
Search around a campground, destination, ZIP code, or overnight stop; enter trip and pet details; choose a Primary facility and Backup; and save the essential information before leaving.
Use the current location to prioritize likely emergency-care options and quickly access call, directions, backup, and saved pet-information actions without showing the trip-planning form.
- Switch between Plan a Trip and Find Care Now modes
- Show a trip-plan editor only in Plan a Trip mode
- Save one active care plan to browser
localStorageusingpawpath.activeCarePlan.v1 - Store a trip name, destination, optional dates, pet name, owner phone, and one brief important note
- Save and restore Primary and Backup facility snapshots after a full page refresh
- Validate stored schema and fail safely when stored data is malformed or unsupported
- Automatically update a saved plan when trip details or facility choices change
- Clear the saved plan and selections with confirmation
- Keep saved plan data entirely in the browser without an account or backend
- Use destination-focused search language and actions for trip preparation
- Emphasize current-location access for immediate nearby-care searches
- Search a 30-mile fallback radius for the nearest emergency or urgent-care option only when none appears in the normal nearby results
- Open the same facility-detail experience from a result card or map marker
- Classify facilities conservatively as emergency, urgent, routine, or unknown
- Show confidence states and plain-language explanations without relying only on color
- Display missing information, OpenStreetMap source links, and call-ahead guidance honestly
- Select one emergency or urgent-care facility as the Primary option
- Select a distinct facility as the Backup option
- Replace, move, view, or remove Primary and Backup selections
- Show selected roles in the care-plan summary, facility cards, map markers, and facility details
- Search by U.S. city, state, or ZIP code
- Use browser geolocation to search near the current position
- View veterinary clinics on an interactive Leaflet map
- Filter results between all care, emergency, and routine clinics
- Open driving directions without embedding a paid map service
- Responsive desktop, tablet, and mobile layouts
- Keyboard-accessible mode controls, search controls, cards, selections, forms, detail drawer, and map markers
- PawPath branded header and favicon
The remaining v0.2 – Care Plan POC work will add:
- A persistent saved-plan summary optimized for quick review
- Emergency Mode
- Curated demonstration data
- Printable emergency card
See Proof-of-Concept Scope and Roadmap.
Phase 1 work is tracked in the v0.2 Care Plan POC tracking issue, with one issue for each feature package and its acceptance criteria.
The next implementation task is POC-05: Add persistent saved-plan summary.
- Documentation Index — recommended reading order
- Why PawPath? — product distinction, audience, value proposition, and messaging
- Product Vision — mission, users, jobs to be done, principles, and success criteria
- Proof-of-Concept Scope — required capabilities and acceptance criteria for the shareable POC
- Roadmap — phased product and development plan
- Phase 1 Backlog — prioritized POC work packages
- Phase 1 Release Plan — increments, release gate, and manual checklist
- Implementation Notes — data objects, state model, storage, confidence logic, and file guidance
- Demo Script — two-minute walkthrough and early-user feedback questions
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
- Leaflet 1.9.4 for the interactive map
- OpenStreetMap map tiles and clinic data
- Nominatim for destination geocoding
- Overpass API for nearby veterinary-facility queries
- Browser
localStoragefor the active care plan
PawPath does not require a Google Maps API key. Google Maps is currently used only as an external destination for the Directions and emergency-search links.
pawpath/
├── assets/ # PawPath logo and brand assets
├── docs/ # Product vision, POC scope, roadmap, backlog, and demo documentation
├── index.html # Semantic application layout
├── styles.css # Core responsive design system and components
├── site-fixes.css # Map, brand, mode, and facility-detail enhancements
├── selection.css # Primary and Backup selection components
├── care-plan.css # Saved active care-plan editor and mode-specific presentation
├── emergency-fallback.css # Extended emergency-result presentation
├── leaflet-local.css # Locally hosted Leaflet layout styles
├── app.js # Modes, map, facility classification, detail rendering, search, filters, and UI state
├── emergency-fallback.js # Conditional 30-mile emergency and urgent-care fallback search
├── selection.js # Primary and Backup care-plan selection
├── care-plan.js # Versioned local storage, validation, restore, update, and clear behavior
├── map-layout-fix.js # Defensive Leaflet resize handling
└── README.md # Project overview
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Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/jeffthomasiii/pawpath.git cd pawpath -
Serve the folder from a simple local web server. For example, with Python:
python -m http.server 8000
-
Open
http://localhost:8000in a browser.
A local server is recommended because browser geolocation and remote API requests may not work correctly when the page is opened directly from the file system.
PawPath currently relies on public OpenStreetMap infrastructure. These services are suitable for a lightweight proof of concept but are not unlimited production APIs.
- Do not bulk download or prefetch OpenStreetMap tiles.
- Avoid rapid or automated repeated searches.
- Preserve OpenStreetMap attribution on the map.
- Clinic data can be incomplete or outdated; users should call ahead when possible.
- Before significant production traffic, configure dedicated geocoding, tile, and facility-data providers with appropriate service agreements.
PawPath is not a veterinary diagnosis or medical-triage service. It does not guarantee that a facility is open, available, or able to treat a specific animal or condition. The product should clearly identify uncertain or incomplete information and encourage users to call facilities before traveling.
Location information is used in the browser to perform the requested nearby search. PawPath does not currently maintain a backend or store the user’s location remotely. The active care plan is saved only in the current browser. Users should not enter medical documents, identification records, financial information, or other unnecessary sensitive data into the proof of concept.
MIT License — free to use, adapt, and share.