Inspiration
Okay so we grew up watching Paw Patrol. A team that shows up when something goes wrong and just handles it. That idea stuck.
In real life it is not that simple. Your neighbor’s dog needs a walk. Someone’s cat gets out. You would help, but you do not even know who needs what. Group chats get messy and posts disappear. We wanted a simple place for neighbors to help with pets, kind of like Paw Patrol for normal people.
What it does
Pet Patrol is a neighborhood board for pet stuff.
You can say when you are free to help, where you usually are, and what animals you are okay with. If a pet is lost or you found one, you can post that too. Photos are optional. Other people can look through who is available, filter by pet type or time, and get contact info. When a pet gets home, you mark it found, and that shows up as good news.
Basically: ask for help, offer help, and keep track of lost pets on your block.
How we built it
We used Streamlit for the website and SQLite for the database. If someone uploads a photo, it gets saved on the computer running the app.
We built it step by step. First we set up the tabs and data. Then we made the forms. Then we added the useful stuff like marking a pet found, contacting helpers, and filters. At the end we cleaned up the design and made sure empty forms and missing photos did not break everything.
Challenges we ran into
The features were not the hardest part. Making it look right was.
Streamlit kept using dark mode colors even when our page was light, so a lot of text turned white and you could barely read it. One time our CSS showed up as actual text on the page, which was awful. We also had to make filters work with normal writing like “weekday evenings,” not perfect schedules. Empty pages and missing photos took more fixing than we expected.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We can demo the whole thing start to finish. Someone can offer help, report a lost pet, mark it found, and filter helpers, and it all works.
We like that it sounds friendly instead of fake corporate. The colors make it easy to tell what is still missing and what is home. And when people mess up a form or skip a photo, the app does not freak out.
What we learned
People do not need a huge app. They need something clear and easy.
We learned that regular sentences can still work for filters if you plan for them. We learned that design matters a lot if you want people to trust what you made. And we learned Streamlit themes can mess you up if you ignore them until the end.
What's next for Pet Patrol
We want to share it in a real neighborhood chat with a link or QR code and see if people use it. We also want better “nearby” matching without being creepy, reminders for old lost pet posts, maybe groups for one street or building, and a version that feels better on phones.
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