Paws In Our Hearts
You are not alone here.
Last updated: July 2026
The short version. You can read this site without an account. If you make one, we collect what you choose to tell us about your companion and your grief, so the site can respond to you as a person rather than a stranger. We don’t sell your information to anyone. Your private letters stay private. You can take your information with you or ask us to delete it, and we’ll do it.
Paws in Our Hearts is a pet loss grief support community at https://pawsinourhearts.com.
You can reach us about anything in this policy at support@pawsinourhearts.com.
You do not need an account to read stories, browse memorials, or light a candle. When you visit, our hosting provider automatically records standard technical information — your IP address, browser type, the pages you request, and the time you requested them — in server logs. This happens on essentially every website and is used to keep the site running and secure.
If you light a candle without an account, we store a one-way cryptographic hash of your IP address for 24 hours. This stops the same person clicking repeatedly; it cannot be reversed to identify you, and it is deleted automatically.
After registering, we ask a short set of optional questions so the site can respond to your situation rather than showing everyone the same thing:
Only the name, animal type, whether they have died, and the kind of support you want are required. You can change or clear any of these at any time, and you can use the site without answering them.
When you upload a photograph, we resize it and store it on our server. Photographs can contain hidden metadata such as the location and time they were taken. WordPress removes some of this during resizing, but not reliably in every case. If you are concerned about location data, strip it from photographs before uploading, or avoid uploading images taken at your home.
Some of what you may tell us here — how you are feeling, that you are struggling with guilt after a euthanasia decision, that you are finding it hard to cope — can reveal something about your mental health. Under UK and EU data protection law this may count as a special category of personal data, which has stronger protection.
We handle this on the basis of your explicit consent. In practice that means:
We are not healthcare providers. Nothing here is a medical record, and nothing you write is seen by a clinician.
Luna is an AI companion, not a person and not a therapist. It is important you understand exactly what happens when you talk to her.
When you send Luna a message, that message — together with recent messages in the same conversation and a short summary built from your joining answers (your companion’s name, whether they have died, and the kind of support you asked for) — is sent to Anthropic, the company that provides the AI model, so a reply can be generated. Anthropic processes it on our behalf. Their privacy terms are at anthropic.com/legal/privacy.
Every message is checked on our own server, before it goes anywhere, for words suggesting you might be thinking about suicide or harming yourself. If that check matches, your message is not sent to the AI at all. You receive a fixed response containing crisis helpline details instead. This check is automated, uses a simple word list, and no person reads your message as part of it.
Luna can be a comfort at three in the morning. She cannot assess risk, cannot call anyone for you, and is not a substitute for a doctor, a grief counsellor, or a person who knows you. If you are struggling badly, please tell someone who can actually be with you.
| What we do | Why | Legal basis (UK/EU GDPR) |
|---|---|---|
| Run your account and let you log in | So you can use the site | Performance of a contract |
| Publish your stories, memorials and posts | Because you asked us to | Performance of a contract |
| Personalise your dashboard and Luna’s replies | So support fits your situation | Explicit consent |
| Send anniversary reminders | Because you opted in | Consent (you can turn it off) |
| Moderate submissions before publishing | To keep the community safe | Legitimate interests |
| Automated crisis word check | To surface help quickly | Vital interests / legitimate interests |
| Server logs, backups, security | To keep the site working | Legitimate interests |
| Respond to your emails | To help you | Legitimate interests |
We do not sell your personal information, and we never will. We have never taken money in exchange for anyone’s data, and we are not going to.
We do not run advertising on this site and we do not share anything with advertisers or data brokers.
Information is shared with:
Other members see only what you choose to publish. See section 12.
Our servers are located in the United States. Where information leaves the UK or the European Economic Area, we rely on the safeguards those providers have in place, such as standard contractual clauses. You can ask us for details.
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Your account and joining answers | Until you delete your account |
| Published stories, memorials, letters, forum posts | Until you delete them or your account |
| Submissions we declined to publish | 12 months, then deleted |
| Luna conversation content | Not stored by us — session only |
| Luna daily message counts | 30 days |
| Hashed IP for candle lighting | 24 hours, then deleted automatically |
| Server logs | as retained by our host |
| Backups | 30 days — deleted information may persist in backups until they rotate |
| Emails you send us | 24 months |
Depending on where you live, you have some or all of the following rights:
To use any of these, email support@pawsinourhearts.com. We’ll respond within one month. We may ask you to confirm your identity first, so we don’t hand your information to someone else.
If you have an account, you can also request a copy or a deletion directly from within the site, and we’ll process it the same way.
Email us and we will delete your account. When we do:
We keep this deliberately minimal. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies, and there is no analytics profiling of individuals.
| What | Purpose | Lasts |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress login cookies | Keeps you logged in | Session, or 14 days if you tick “remember me” |
| Comment cookies | Remembers your name if you comment | Up to 12 months |
| Browser session storage (Luna) | Holds your current conversation in your own browser | Until you close the tab |
Clearing your browser data removes all of these.
This matters, so we want to be precise:
Once something is published on the internet it may be copied, cached or archived by others. We can remove it from this site; we cannot remove copies elsewhere. Please think about that before publishing anything you might want back.
We may look at what you have written, and share it if we have to, where we genuinely believe someone is at risk of serious harm — including where we are required to by law. We would not do this lightly. In an emergency, contact your local emergency services; we are not a monitored service and nobody is watching the site at all hours.
This site is for adults. You must be at least 16 to create an account. We do not knowingly collect information from children. Many families lose a pet together, and we have material intended to help a parent talk to their child — but the account and the writing should be the adult’s. If you believe a child has created an account, tell us and we will remove it.
The site is served over an encrypted connection. Passwords are stored as one-way hashes. Access to the administration area is limited to a small number of people who need it. Uploaded files are checked to confirm they are genuine images. We keep the software updated.
No website can promise perfect security. If a breach occurs that is likely to put your rights at risk, we will tell you and the relevant regulator without undue delay.
If we change this policy we will update the date at the top. If a change materially affects how we use your information, we will tell you directly — by email or a notice on the site — rather than quietly editing this page.
Email support@pawsinourhearts.com,
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, you can complain to your data protection authority. In the UK that is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk). In the EU it is the authority in your country. Elsewhere, your national regulator. We would rather you told us first, so we can put it right.