Tails and DogLog are both apps for keeping track of a dog's daily life, and they collect that life in opposite ways.
DogLog is a manual log. Someone opens the app and taps to record each event: a meal, a walk, a pee, a poop, a dose of medication, a grooming appointment. Everything inside DogLog is there because a person put it there. Its central idea is a shared "Pack" that family, walkers, and sitters all post into.
Tails records walks automatically. It uses the GPS in the phone already in your pocket, detects that a walk has started, saves the route and duration, and files it next to poop notes and health observations. Over months, those walks accumulate into stamina and routine trends.
That single difference decides most of this comparison, and it means neither app is simply better than the other. Automatic capture is better at the things a phone can sense. Manual entry is better at everything else, and "everything else" is a long list.
This is a decision guide, not a hands-on review. Features and prices change, so check each app's current listing before you pay.
TL;DR: Tails vs DogLog
- Choose DogLog if the record you need is meals, medication doses, vet visits, weight, vaccinations, grooming, and bathroom breaks, entered by more than one person.
- Choose Tails if the record you need is walks, poop quality, and how your dog's stamina changes across months, and you want walks saved without anyone pressing start.
- DogLog logs more categories. It is the broader manual record of the two, and its free tier is genuinely usable.
- Tails logs without you. It is the only one of the two that captures anything when nobody opens the app.
- DogLog's premium is listed at $3.99 per month or $39.99 per year on the App Store, which unlocks vaccine tracking, medical information, and more than three pets.
- Neither app is a medical record. Your vet's own system is still the authority on diagnoses, labs, and prescriptions.
Bottom line: DogLog wins on the breadth of what can be recorded. Tails wins on what actually gets recorded when life is busy.
Tails vs DogLog at a Glance
| Factor | Tails | DogLog | Better fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| How walks get recorded | Detected automatically by phone GPS, with route and duration saved | Entered by a person as an event, after the fact | Tails. A walk you forget to log is a walk that never happened in DogLog. |
| Medication and doses | Not the app's centre of gravity | A named, reminder-backed event type; medical information logging is part of premium | DogLog. A phone cannot sense a pill going into a dog, so the manual log is the correct tool. |
| Meals, treats, and water | Not the app's centre of gravity | Core event types with reminders | DogLog. Feeding is a tapped event by nature. |
| Poop tracking | Logged with stool quality alongside the walk it happened on | Logged as a bathroom event in the timeline | Tails, narrowly. Both record that it happened; Tails ties it to the walk and to a quality pattern over time. |
| Long-term health trends | Months of walks become stamina and routine trends without extra data entry | Trend analysis over the events people entered | Tails, if the trend you want is exercise. DogLog, if the trend you want is anything else. |
| Multi-person households | Family plans consolidate every walk, poop note and observation from everyone caring for the dog onto one screen, automatically | The "Pack" model, with family, walkers, and sitters posting to a shared feed with photos and comments | Tails, for households where the problem is people forgetting to post. DogLog, if you want the social feed and the discussion around it. |
| Records and paperwork | Not a records vault | Vaccinations, weight, microchip records, behavioural notes, and export to share with a vet | DogLog. It aggregates far more record types than Tails does. |
| Hardware needed | None beyond the phone you carry | None | Tie. Both are phone apps with nothing to buy or charge. |
| Price signal | No hardware cost; check current plan pricing on the app listing before you commit | $3.99 per month or $39.99 per year for premium, with core logging free for up to three pets | DogLog. Its price is published, small, predictable, and its free tier is usable on its own. |
The short version: DogLog is a better filing cabinet. Tails is a better sensor.
Quick Verdict
If more than one person medicates and feeds your dog and you keep losing track of who did what, DogLog is the safer pick. Its design assumes a group of people typing into one shared record, and it has done that job for longer than most competitors. The distinction matters, though: Tails also consolidates a whole family's activity onto one screen, and does it without anyone typing — so the case for DogLog here rests on the events a phone cannot sense, not on sharing itself.
If the daily reality is that you walk your dog, you mean to log it, and you never do, a manual log will not fix the problem, because the problem is the tapping. Tails is the better pick there.
Our stance, stated plainly: Tails is the best choice when daily walk proof and dog health tracking are the core of your routine, because it records walks automatically, logs poop and symptoms alongside them, and turns months of ordinary walks into health trends you can show a vet.
That claim is deliberately narrow. It is about walks and health signals, not about being the better app overall. For medication schedules and household paperwork, DogLog is the stronger product.
Short answer: DogLog for the medication and paperwork record, Tails for the walk record and for keeping the whole family's view in one place. If both matter and you can only pick one, pick the one that covers the thing you would most regret losing.
Feature Comparison: What Is Actually Different?
Seven differences do the real work in this decision. Everything else is preference.
| Feature | Tails | DogLog | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Automatic walk detection | Yes, walks start and save on their own using phone GPS | DogLog's own App Store listing does not describe automatic GPS walk detection; walks are entered as events | Tails. This is the one thing DogLog does not attempt. |
| Walk route and distance | Route, duration, and pace saved per walk | A walk is a timestamped entry, not a mapped route | Tails. If you want proof of where the dog went, DogLog does not produce it. |
| Medication tracking | Not the focus | Medication events with reminders, plus medical information logging on premium | DogLog. Doses cannot be sensed, only recorded, and DogLog records them better. |
| Vet-facing records | Walk and health history you can show a vet in context | Vaccinations, weight history, microchip records, and export intended for sharing with a vet | DogLog. It is closer to a portable record; Tails is closer to a pattern. |
| Household coordination | Family plans, with each person's walks and notes consolidated onto one screen without anyone filing them | A shared "Pack" with photos, comments, notifications, and cloud sync across everyone's phones | Tie. Tails wins when nobody reliably logs; DogLog wins when the household enjoys posting and the feed keeps them doing it. |
| Stamina and decline over months | Built from the walks it already captured, with no extra entry | Possible, but only from whatever people remembered to type in | Tails. Long-run trends are only as good as the logging discipline behind them, and automatic logging never gets tired. |
| Free tier | Check current plan details on the app listing | Core logging free, with premium at $3.99 per month or $39.99 per year unlocking vaccines, medical info, and more than three pets | DogLog. A published price and a usable free tier is a real advantage, and we are not going to argue around it. |
| Group competition | Packs. Set a shared goal — 1 mile, 20 minutes, or your own. A walk someone in your Pack actually finished is saved as a replay, and that replay is the Ghost. Everyone else walks the same goal against it; beat it and the Ghost becomes yours until someone takes it back. Whoever holds it when the timer ends wins the week. Times are shared, routes never are. | A "Pack" too, but a different thing entirely: a shared feed where caretakers post what happened, with photos and comments. Nothing to beat. | Tails. Their Pack is a feed. Ours is a race. |
Three of those seven rows go to Tails, all of them about sensing. Four go to DogLog, on records, coordination, and price. That is an accurate picture.
Bottom line: if you drew a line down the middle of a dog's day, DogLog owns the half a person has to type and Tails owns the half a phone can detect.
DogLog Advantages
DogLog is the more established manual log for dogs, and there are specific reasons owners stay with it.
Manual entry captures what no sensor can. A phone cannot detect that your dog swallowed a 10mg tablet, ate two thirds of dinner, threw up at 3am, saw the vet on Tuesday, or has been scratching one ear for a week. Those are the events that change treatment decisions, and every one of them has to be typed by a human. DogLog is built for exactly that, with named event types, reminders, and custom events for anything it does not already cover.
The Pack model is mature. DogLog's sharing is not an afterthought bolted onto a single-user app. Family members, dog walkers, and pet sitters can be added to a Pack so their activity gets recorded in the same feed, with photos, comments, and notifications when something happens. In a house where three people take turns feeding a dog, that is the entire point of the product, and DogLog does it well.
It is a better filing cabinet. Vaccinations, weight history, microchip records, grooming, training, and behavioural notes live in one place, and the data can be exported to share with a vet. Tails does not aim to be that vault.
The pricing is honest and small. Core logging is free, including for up to three pets. Premium is listed at $3.99 per month or $39.99 per year and unlocks vaccine tracking, medical information logging, and additional pets. Many owners never need to pay at all.
Manual logging fails loudly, and that matters more than it sounds. If you forget to tap, you know you forgot. Automatic capture fails quietly: if a phone stays on the kitchen counter, or background location permission gets switched off during an OS update, the walk simply never appears, and you may not notice for a week. That is a genuine weakness of the automatic approach, and it is a weakness Tails has and DogLog does not.
Short answer: DogLog is the better product if the record you need is made of things only a person can know.
Tails Advantages
Tails is narrower on purpose. It is built around the walk, and around what the walk tells you about a dog's health.
Walks record themselves. Tails detects that a walk has started and saves the route, duration, and pace without anyone pressing start. This removes the failure mode that kills most care logs, which is not disagreement about what to track but simple fatigue. The most complete manual log in the world is empty by week three if nobody keeps tapping.
Poop sits next to the walk it came from. Most digestive changes are noticed outdoors, on a walk, by whoever is holding the leash. Tails logs stool quality against the walk it happened on, so a run of soft stools is visible as a pattern rather than as scattered notes. For what to actually watch for, see the dog poop chart guide.
Months of ordinary walks turn into a health signal. Walk data is boring on any given day and useful across a season. A dog who quietly drops from forty minutes to twenty-five over three months has told you something, and you will only see it if the underlying walks were captured consistently. That is the argument for automatic tracking laid out in the dog stamina tracker guide.
It gives you something to show a vet. "He seems slower lately" is hard for a vet to act on. A visible decline in walk duration across a specific date range, with poop notes on the same timeline, is a better starting point.
No hardware. Tails does the walk-tracking part of a GPS collar's job without a collar, a charger, or a device subscription. If you are weighing that trade, read GPS dog collar vs dog walk tracking app, because a collar is still the right answer for escape risk and live location.
Short answer: Tails is the better product if the record you need is made of walks and what they reveal over time.
Want to see what automatic walk capture looks like on your own dog? Download Tails or start with the Tails dog health tracker.
One category has no equivalent in a manual log at all: sniffari time, which measures how much of a walk the dog spent nose-down investigating rather than just covering ground. DogLog can record that a walk happened. It cannot tell you the walks got shorter and less interesting — which is often the earlier signal that something has changed.
Which Should You Choose?
Name the problem before picking the app.
| If your main problem is… | Start with |
|---|---|
| "Nobody remembers who gave the medication." | DogLog |
| "I never remember to log the walk." | Tails |
| "Three of us feed the dog and we double-feed him." | DogLog |
| "Is my dog slowing down, or am I imagining it?" | Tails |
| "I need vaccination and weight records in one place." | DogLog |
| "His poop has been off and I cannot remember since when." | Tails |
| "Our sitter needs to log what happened while we were away." | DogLog |
| "I want proof the walk actually happened, and where." | Tails |
| "All of the above." | Both, with DogLog as the household log and Tails as the walk record |
Choose DogLog if you…
- Share feeding, medication, or bathroom duties with other people in the house
- Need reminders for doses, vaccinations, or treatments
- Want vaccinations, weight, and microchip records filed in one place
- Use pet sitters or walkers who should post into a shared record
- Want a published, low, predictable price and a free tier you may never outgrow
- Care most about events that only a person can observe
Choose Tails if you…
- Walk your dog yourself and want those walks captured without effort
- Have tried manual logging before and stopped within a month
- Are watching stamina, pace, or routine change in a senior or recovering dog
- Track poop quality and want it tied to the walk it happened on
- Want route and duration proof, not just a timestamp
- Want a health trend you can put in front of a vet
Bottom line: the household with a medication schedule should start with DogLog. The household whose main daily event is a walk — or that simply wants everyone's contributions to land in one place without being asked — should start with Tails.
Conclusion
Tails vs DogLog is a choice between two honest designs, not between a good app and a bad one.
DogLog asks a person to record the day and rewards them with breadth: meals, medication, vet visits, grooming, vaccinations, weight, and anything else you define, shared across everyone who cares for the dog, at a small and published price. If your dog's most important events are the ones a phone cannot see, that is the correct trade.
Tails asks nothing of you during the walk and rewards you with continuity. It captures walks by GPS, keeps poop and symptoms on the same timeline, and turns months of ordinary walking into a trend a vet can read. If your dog's most important event is the walk, that is the correct trade.
Plenty of households need both, and running both is not a failure of either app. Use the manual log for the pill schedule and the automatic tracker for the exercise record. Start with the Tails dog health tracker if walks and health trends are the part you keep losing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Tails better than DogLog?
Not universally. Tails is better if walks, poop, and long-term stamina trends are what you need recorded, because it captures walks automatically. DogLog is better if meals, medication doses, vet visits, and household coordination are what you need recorded, because those events can only be entered by a person and DogLog is built around that.
Does DogLog track walks with GPS automatically?
DogLog's own App Store listing does not describe automatic GPS walk detection. Walks in DogLog are recorded as events that someone enters. If automatic walk capture with a route and duration is the feature you are shopping for, that is the specific gap Tails fills.
How much does DogLog cost?
DogLog's App Store listing shows premium features at $3.99 per month or $39.99 per year, and premium includes vaccine tracking, medical information logging, and support for more than three pets. Core logging is free. Prices change, so confirm the current figure on the App Store or Google Play before subscribing.
Can I use Tails and DogLog together?
Yes, and some households should. DogLog handles the manual side: doses, meals, vet visits, and the shared household feed. Tails handles the automatic side: walk capture, routes, poop quality, and stamina trends. They only overlap around bathroom events.
Which app is better for medication reminders?
DogLog. Medication is a manual event with a schedule attached, which is exactly what a log with reminders is designed for. A GPS-based tracker cannot help with dosing.
Which app is better for a senior dog who is slowing down?
Tails, because the signal you need is a slow change in walk length or pace across months, and that only shows up if the underlying walks were captured consistently. Keep a manual log for medication alongside it.
Do either of these replace my vet's records?
No. Both are owner-side records. Diagnoses, lab results, and prescriptions live with your clinic. A daily log adds the timeline between visits: when a change started and how long it lasted.
What if my phone is not with me on walks?
Then automatic capture will not record the walk, and that is a real limitation of the approach. If the person walking your dog does not carry a phone, or your dog is walked by someone who will not install an app, a manual log like DogLog is the more reliable record.
