Friends and enemies: pet compatibility

Every daycare has dogs that are joined at the hip and dogs that can't share a fence line. Record those relationships once in WagDay and the scheduler works around them for you — no more relying on whoever's rostered on remembering that Rex and Buddy had a scrap last winter.

The two relationship types

• Friend — two pets that do well together. Auto-allocation prefers placing a pet in a space that already holds a friend, alongside its other considerations (size, temperament and balancing numbers across spaces).
• Incompatible — two pets that must be kept apart. Auto-allocation will not place a pet into a space with an occupant it's incompatible with, and manual assignments trigger a warning.

Relationships are two-way: link Rex to Buddy once and it shows on both pets' profiles, and applies no matter which of the two you're booking.

Linking two pets

Any staff member can manage relationships — it requires the Staff role or above.

1. Open the pet's profile and go to the Care plan tab.
2. On the Compatibility card, click Add Relationship.
3. Search for the other pet by name or breed and select them.
4. Choose the Relationship Type: Friend or Incompatible.
5. Add a note if useful — "littermates", "food aggression incident March 2026" — and save.

The card lists the pet's relationships under Friends and Incompatible, each linking to the other pet's profile. Remove one with the trash icon when circumstances change.

Where compatibility matters

Compatibility is enforced where pets are physically placed:

• Auto-allocation — when WagDay assigns spaces automatically, an incompatible pairing is a hard constraint: that space is skipped for that pet ("Incompatible with pet already in pen"). A pet that can't be placed anywhere lands in the unassigned list with the reason "No space available — all spaces at capacity or incompatible", so you can shuffle spaces manually. Friendships are a preference, not a guarantee — a space containing a friend scores higher, but capacity and the other constraints still apply.
• Manual assignment — if you assign a booking to a space and the result puts an incompatible pair in together, WagDay shows a compatibility warning naming the pair ("Compatibility warning: incompatible pets in this space — Rex & Buddy"). The assignment still succeeds — it's a warning, not a block — so the final call stays with your staff.

Getting the most from it

• Record an Incompatible link after any incident between two dogs, while it's fresh — the note field is where you put the why.
• Link regulars who genuinely play well together as Friends; it's the difference between a calm pen and a stressed one on a busy day.
• Keep the list current: relationships change as dogs mature, and a stale "incompatible" costs you a usable space every day.

Related

• Temperament flags (traffic light system) — the per-dog handling rating that auto-allocation also weighs.
• Behaviour assessments — score new dogs before their first daycare booking.