It isn't a medical app and it doesn't replace your vet. It's the same paper you already have, kept somewhere it can't get wet, folded, or left behind in the old apartment.
Almost everyone knows what the card is. It's that sheet folded into quarters, with ruled lines, stamps, and somebody else's handwriting.
What almost nobody knows is where it is.
"In the folder, I think." "The vet gave it to me and then I lost track of it." "It was in the glovebox of the car we sold." Nobody says this with any guilt, and nobody should: the paper card was designed for the clinic counter, not to survive four years in a house where people live.
It's worth saying what it does well first, because it does several things well.
Someone else writes it — and that matters: it's the handwriting of the person who examined your dog, not your memory. It carries a stamp. Counter staff accept it without argument. It needs no battery, no signal, and no password you have to remember. It costs nothing.
The problem is a different one, and it's structural: there is exactly one copy.
One copy that rides around in a backpack, gets rained on, and lives in the important-papers folder until the folder moves house. And when that copy disappears, it isn't a sheet of paper that's gone: it's the whole history, because the paper was the history. There was nowhere else.
It's the same content — the dates, what was given, who administered it, the next date you were told — kept somewhere that doesn't depend on that sheet of paper surviving.
That's all. And to earn the name, it has to do three things:
1. Hold the paper card as it is. A photo or a PDF of both sides. The paper is still the original and the clinic will keep asking for it; the digital version doesn't replace it, it backs it up.
2. Store dates as dates, not as a photo. This is the real difference between a digital card and a folder of pictures on your phone. A photo can't be sorted, searched, counted, or used to remind you of anything. A date written as a date can.
3. Let the information leave. Show it at the counter, print it when someone asks for paper, share it with whoever looks after your pet while you're away. A card you can only see inside one app is half a card.
This is where it pays to be blunt, because some apps promise more than they should.
It is not a vet. It doesn't tell you what to give your pet, how often, or how much. No app knows your dog's age, where they live, who they live with, or the climate they're in. The person who can answer that is the one looking at the animal.
It is not the clinical file. The file — what was observed, what was measured, what was decided — belongs to the clinic. Your card is the part that's yours: what was given, when, and when it's next.
It is not a requirement. Nobody is going to demand an app. If you'd rather use a notebook, a notebook works. The only thing that doesn't work is memory.
Before you put four years of history inside something, it's worth asking:
This is free and takes two minutes:
That is already a digital vaccination card. A crude one, but a real one. Everything else is convenience stacked on top of those four steps.
Maskotis exists because of exactly that gap: a place where your pet's care history lives, so the next date doesn't depend on your memory or on a piece of paper that got lost in a move.
Today you can register your pet and keep their care events there. What we're working on is telling you when the date your vet gave you is coming up, so you don't have to be the one who remembers — that isn't open yet, and you'll know when it is.
What Maskotis will not do, even when it's finished, is tell you what to give your pet. That's decided by whoever can examine them.
In the meantime: photograph the card, today. It takes less time than finishing this article.
Maskotis does not give medical recommendations and this article is not a substitute for a veterinary consultation. What your pet is given, when, and how often is decided by the person who can examine them. Take them to the vet you trust, or to the nearest clinic — they'll help you there.
It sounds like a step backwards and it isn't. There are four specific moments where paper wins, which is why printing is part of the product rather than an accessory.
Feature lists don't help you decide. Seven questions that do — including the three no app answers on its home page. And yes, we're one of them.
You're going to post the photo anyway. These five take exactly as long, and in three years they'll be worth far more than the photo.