What is a cookie?
A cookie is a small text file that a website asks your browser to store. Cookies let sites remember preferences between visits, keep you signed in, or — for advertising cookies — help track you across sites. The same idea applies to similar technologies: local storage, session storage, pixels, and device identifiers. For the purposes of this page, we use "cookie" to cover all of them.
Cookies we set by default
None. Loading any page on walkingdog.io, typing into the calculator, or reading the journal sets no cookies on your device from us. We do not run analytics software (Google Analytics, Plausible, Fathom, Mixpanel, etc.) by default.
Optional cookies
Advertising — Google AdSense
Some pages may carry ads served by Google AdSense. When a page that hosts AdSense
loads, Google may set cookies and similar identifiers to serve and measure ads. Common
AdSense cookies include NID, IDE, DSID, and the
__gads / __gpi pair. Their function is described in Google's
documentation at
policies.google.com/technologies/ads.
Where your jurisdiction requires opt-in consent (for example, the UK, EEA, and Switzerland under the ePrivacy Directive and UK PECR), AdSense operates behind a consent banner. Non-essential advertising cookies are not set until you consent. You can withdraw consent at any time using the "Cookie settings" link in the footer — this reopens the consent panel and lets you change your choice.
You can also opt out of personalised advertising globally at google.com/settings/ads and youronlinechoices.com (EU) or optout.aboutads.info (US).
Preferences you opt into
If you change a site setting that should stick between visits (for example, a dark mode toggle), that preference is stored in your browser's local storage on your device. It is not transmitted to us and is not a tracking cookie in the analytics sense. You can clear it at any time from your browser's site data settings.
How to control cookies
- In your browser — every major browser lets you block or delete cookies per site. Look for "Privacy and security → Site settings → Cookies" in Chrome, "Privacy & Security → Cookies and Site Data" in Firefox, or the "Privacy" pane in Safari.
- Do Not Track / Global Privacy Control — we honour the Global Privacy Control signal where technically possible by treating it as a withdrawal of consent to advertising cookies.
- Ad settings — use the Google and industry opt-out links in the section above.
Changes
If we ever add analytics or a new category of cookie, we will update this page before those cookies start being set, and — where required — will request consent through a banner.
Contact
Questions about this policy: [CONTACT_EMAIL]. See also Privacy policy.