Walker Guide
A tour of the app for shelter walkers.
Jump to…
Signing in
DWA uses your Google account. Tap Sign in with Google on the launch screen and pick your address. If you’re new, you’ll land on a request-access form — fill it in and an admin will be notified. Once an admin approves you, you’ll get a welcome email, and your next Google sign-in will let you straight in. If sign-in keeps failing, message an admin.
Add to your home screen
Install DWA as an app icon so it opens full-screen, without the browser bar.
Android (Chrome)
- Open dwa.kirbsauce.com in Chrome.
- Tap the ⋮ menu (top right) and choose Add to Home screen — or tap Install if Chrome already offered you a banner.
- Confirm by tapping Add / Install.
iOS (Safari)
- Open dwa.kirbsauce.com in Safari.
- Tap the Share icon (the square with an arrow pointing up).
- Scroll down and tap Add to Home Screen.
- Tap Add in the top right.
Either way, you’ll get a DWA icon on your home screen that opens the app full-screen, just like a native app.
The roster screen
The roster lists every walkable dog in the kennel today, ordered by the current sort (WALK ORDER by default). Each row shows, left to right:
- Y — yesterday’s activity at a glance (walked once, twice, playgroup, or nothing / recent surgery).
- 1 · 2 · P — status icons for Walk 1, Walk 2, and Playgroup. A filled, checked icon means done; an outline means pending. Color highlights flag what’s urgent or reserved (see Cell colors).
- KNL — the kennel to find the dog in (e.g.
AC03). - CLR — the dog’s color grade (see Color grades).
- NAME — the dog’s name.
- W1 · W2 · PG — the time each activity was logged, or a check once done.
- ⋮ — a kebab menu, shown only if you’re flagged as a trainer and/or playgroup lead (set by an admin). Tap it for Reserve for Training / Unreserve for Training and/or Reserve for Playgroup / Unreserve for Playgroup — toggles the dog’s reservation right from the roster, no confirm needed. See Reservations for how a reservation then displays.
Tap any row to open the dog’s page — that’s where you log walks, check kennel location, and read notes.
Below the table, a row of pills summarizes what’s outstanding: a N NOT
WALKED count (dogs with no activity logged today) that’s always shown — red
while dogs still need a walk, green once it hits zero — and, when applicable,
N TRAINING RSVD / N PLAYGROUP RSVD counts for dogs reserved but
not yet attended. These counts reflect the full roster regardless of any
active filter (see Filters).
The dog detail page
- ID — tap it to copy the animal ID to your clipboard; the button flashes Copied! for a moment to confirm.
- Kennel (e.g.
AC03) — tap it to jump straight to the Kennel Map, centered on that dog’s room. - Photo — tap it to view full-screen.
- Other information may show up below these, when it applies to that dog — flags like Potty Dog, Recent surgery - NO RUNNING, Adoption hold, DROP DIVIDERS, and LIMITED ACTIVITY - SEE NOTES (an activity restriction — check the dog’s notes for details).
Logging a walk
Under LOG ACTIVITY you’ll see up to three buttons:
- Walk 1
- Walk 2 — locked until Walk 1 is logged.
- Playgroup
Tap a button to log that activity. Once logged, the button switches to show the
time it happened, e.g. W1 @ 8:47. To undo a mistake, tap the logged button
again to clear it — except Walk 1, which locks once Walk 2 is logged; clear
Walk 2 first if you need to undo Walk 1. Each tap syncs across devices
instantly, so what you log shows up for everyone right away.
Reservations
A dog can be reserved before you walk it. When so, a pill appears above the buttons:
- Reserved for Playgroup (green) — hold the dog for playgroup.
- Reserved for Training (cyan) — the Walk 1 button also gets a cyan border; the dog is spoken for by training.
Walk notes
Below the buttons, the dog’s most recent note for each activity is shown. If
there’s more than one note for an activity, a +N more link appears — tap it
to read the full history for that slot.
Notes
Further down, a NOTES section holds the dog’s ongoing care and behavior notes — anything worth knowing before you walk it. Words in ALL CAPS (like DROP DIVIDERS or NO CATS) are highlighted in red so warnings jump out.
Tools
At the bottom, a TOOLS section links out to other systems:
- Submit a Comment / Submit Medical Observation / Submit Behavior Observation / Submit Kennel Observation — opens a form to report something about the dog or the kennel. Each form comes prepopulated with available information.
- View on Pet Compass / View on Pet Harbor — opens the dog’s record in the county’s own systems.
- Verify Kennel — cross-checks the dog’s kennel against Pet Compass and flags it if they don’t match.
Color grades
Every dog wears a color from easiest to hardest:
Green → Pink → Aqua → Blue− → Blue → Gold− → Gold → Red → Black
Your own color grade (shown in Settings → WALKER PROFILE, set by an admin) is the hardest color you’re cleared to walk. You can walk any dog at or below your grade. Dogs above your grade appear dimmed and drop to the bottom of the list when a view-based sort like WALK ORDER is active.
Dogs flagged for special handling always display as Red, regardless of their usual color grade — treat these with the same caution as any other Red dog.
Cell colors
The status-icon highlights on the roster tell you what’s pending:
- Yellow / amber on a walk icon — that walk slot is urgent.
- Green on Playgroup — the dog is reserved for playgroup but hasn’t attended.
- Cyan on Walk 1 — the dog is reserved for training but hasn’t walked.
Once an activity is logged, its highlight clears — the check wins over the color.
The WALK ORDER sort
The default WALK ORDER sort puts the hardest color you can walk at the top. Within a color, dogs run urgent (yellow) → amber → neutral → reserved → done. Dogs above your color grade fall to the bottom, dimmed.
This example is what an Aqua-level walker sees — which dogs sit at the top, and which dim out, depends on your own color grade.
Open the SORT BY overlay from the sort icon in the header to pick another sort. View-based sorts like WALK ORDER are one-way orderings — the A → Z / Z → A toggle only applies to plain field sorts (Kennel, Color, Name). Use CLEAR SORT to drop back to the default.
Filters
Tap the filter icon next to the sort icon to narrow the roster. COLORS
lets you multi-select color grades and either show only those (ONLY) or
hide them (NOT). Filters such as Playgroup (reserved) and Training
(reserved) each have a checkbox to turn that filter on, plus an ONLY /
NOT toggle for which way it applies once checked — unchecking turns the
filter off without losing your ONLY/NOT choice. While any filter is active
the filter icon highlights and the count under ROSTER switches to
SHOWING X OF Y DOGS. Tap CLEAR FILTERS to reset everything.
The Search screen
Open Search from the nav menu to find a dog by name, ID, kennel, breed, color, or even a word from its notes — matches appear as you type, with name matches listed first.
Each result shows the dog’s color, name, kennel, and today’s W1 · W2 · PG ticks (green once logged). Tap a result to open that dog’s page.
My Log
Open My Log from the nav menu to see your own walk-toggle history — every W1/W2/PG you’ve logged, newest first, grouped under TODAY, YESTERDAY, and earlier day headings. Each row shows the time, the dog’s name, and which activity was toggled, with a green checkmark for checked or a red ✕ for unchecked. Tap a row to open that dog’s page.
The Kennel Map
Open Kennel Map from the nav menu — or tap a dog’s kennel on its detail page to jump straight there, centered on that room.
Tap a room to see its kennels. Each row shows the dog’s name, color, and walk status (✓ WALKED, ✓ PLAYGROUP, or NEEDS WALK), plus a running tally of how many dogs in that room still need a walk. Tap a dog’s row to open its detail page.
Kennels that look empty, or dogs that aren’t on your walk list, can still show up here — the map cross-checks against Pet Compass, so it’ll flag a mismatch (⚠) if a dog is actually housed somewhere different than the roster says.
The walk timer
If you enable Timer in Settings → APPEARANCE, a small mm:ss timer
appears on the roster page — in the header (top nav) or bottom-right (bottom
nav) — to help you keep track of how long you’ve had a dog out. Tap it to open
play / pause / reset controls, and reset it each time you head out with a new
dog. It caps at 30:00.
Action buttons
Settings → APPEARANCE → Action buttons lets you move the header’s icon buttons (back, refresh, menu, and so on) between TOP (the normal header) and BOTTOM — a bar docked near the bottom of the screen instead. If you’re navigating the app one-handed, BOTTOM keeps those buttons within thumb reach instead of making you stretch to the top of the screen.
Resources
The Resources screen (in the nav menu) has three sections:
- Links — a Walker Guide link that opens this guide in your browser.
- Feedback — a Submit Bug/Enhancement button for reporting a problem or requesting a feature.
- Adopter Resources — a QR code for the adoption info page. Tap it to open, or let an adopter scan it to share the info.
Settings
Open Settings from the nav menu. Walker-facing options:
- WALKER PROFILE — your color level (read-only, set by an admin).
- APPEARANCE — Theme (dark / light), Font size, Action buttons (nav at top or bottom, for one-handed use), and the Timer toggle.
- NOTIFICATIONS — turn on Push notifications for your account (the first toggle asks the browser for permission).
FAQ
Where did the roster checkboxes go? Walk logging moved to the dog’s page — tap a row, then use the buttons under LOG ACTIVITY.
Why didn’t a logged walk show up right away? Normally it does — writes push an instant update to every connected device. If your phone was backgrounded (screen locked or you switched apps) for a while, it may have missed that push; it re-syncs the moment you bring the app back to the foreground. Still stale? Pull to refresh.
Why is a dog dimmed? Its color grade is higher than yours. You can still open it, but it’s not on your walk list today.