About, and the story in a name...

Thinking up a name for a project can be one of those all or nothing parts of the process: either a perfectly formed and uniquely original name appeas in an instant, or something suitable is totally elusive and an agonising exercise in brainstorming, checking and starting again begins, ever hopeful that serendipity will intervene and lend the nascent project a sense of fateful 'meant to be'.

After exhausting what felt like every possible pet-themed pun, and amid that sense of desperation-tinted dreariness I turned to the dog and asked, “Don't suppose you have any ideas?”

The muse was no more instantly amenable to him than me, and off he went.

It wasn't too long after, I remember it as hours rather than days, he was back, predictably by which time I was eating my tea or dinner depending on your latitude.

He gazed at me imploringly: a face of doleful, practised vulnerability with subtle notes of indignation.

It's a face that pet owners, particularly dog owners will know well, it's a face that says, “Come on, who's your mate? I'm your mate, and it would be good for us both - fair and just even - if you could share some morsel from your plate.”

The end was in sight for the arduous, frustrating task of coming up with a name, trademark checks pending.

And while I realise there's expert advice out there warning that feeding dogs from the plate encourages begging, in my view the dog had made a compelling point, concisely put, and won that debate.

At the time I had the basics of my app in place, but a long way and a lot of work - including a near complete overhaul, and then the deceptively messy process of deployment - to go.

As for the idea itself, I left a 15-year career in local journalism in 2023 with a view to getting into programming of some kind.

This included retraining in 2024, but the job hunt didn't go to plan. It's possible I'd ostensibly left one career whose industry had been cannibalised by the internet and social media to join a field potentially facing a similar fate, this time one being slow roasted and devoured by AI, but in any case I realised at a bare minimum I needed to produce an app that was a step up from what I'd done previously - professional grade was the target.

My thinking was if it worked on its own terms then great, if not maybe it will lead to a job, but I love freedom and my independence so the sweet call of the chance to do my own thing was and remains never far away.

Long story short, I'd tried to keep my hand in with writing a bit, writing little book reviews, and enjoyed it and the rest followed. The subject matter made sense - I needed something light-hearted to start with, especially as a one-man band (EDIT 13/5/25: and lattery finding a job meaning obligations to my employer) and with interative stylings that might seem incongruous with weightier topics, something that could hold my interest day to day, and go from there. I've always liked animals, wild or domestic, and while I recognise that many pets stories can be far from light-hearted, they can be tragic and traumatic, as a topic it was generally a good fit for the range of tone I had in mind.

In terms of visuals and user interface, I wanted some quirky features and homebrew design: a typo jar and an animated in-page link, and a competition decided by public votes.

It was a lot of work, satisfying and frustrating in turns, with the occasional thrilling breakthrough or something suddenly clicking and looking right such as a sketch catching my eye and coming to life. I wrote the backend, the content management system and the frontend, with quite a substantial rewrite of big parts of it along the way.

I should add: part of the inspiration came from an ever-popular page called 'Pets of the Week' we used to run at the newspaper where I worked (at one point I thought it had been my idea but it's difficult to remember now), which was full every week, rain or shine, with owners sharing pics of their beloved pets for a simple one-page pic spread.

Not long before setting to work on the site, I half-jokingly said to someone over a brew: "Maybe I'll just do Pet of the Week." (As I always called it)

So what will Who's Your Mate? Pet News™ (WYMPN) cover?

There are already some excellent business to business (B2B) pets trade magazines and news sites out there, and even something for vets. Local, regional and national news titles already ably cover a lot of pet news, and there are myriad blogs out there covering similar things, in addition to the hugely popular We Rate Dogs non-profit account that I discovered while well under way with mine, YouTube and no doubt TikTok are awash with pet channels with colossal, well-established audiences, and then tucked away on various pet insurance websites and similar locations, you can find extremely slick, polished writing by clearly professional and talented copywriters.

I originally envisioned WYMPN to be a bit of everything and something between the lines too - so anything from covering traditional local news style stories such as tribute pieces and appeals, through to industry news, politics and campaigns, and maybe heading more off the beaten path too, scour the internet for interesting creatives writing, painting and so on.

And if anyone has any better ideas, get in touch at info@whosyourmatepetnews.co.uk

The site took longer than planned, but here we are, closing in rapidly on looking to buy a domain and deploy.

A new adventure awaits.

Oliver Clay, Who's Your Mate? Pet News™ editor and developer, 25/3/2025