Privacy & Cookie Policy

#OnlyDogs – Because your privacy matters too! 🐾

Last updated: 24 October 2026

At #OnlyDogs, we believe every dog deserves kindness, patience and a little pampering. We believe their humans deserve the same care and respect, especially when it comes to their personal information.

Whether you’re booking your furry best friend in for a groom, browsing our website, sending us a message or sharing photographs of your precious pooch, we want you to feel confident that your information is being treated responsibly.

This Privacy & Cookie Policy explains what information we collect, why we need it, how we use it and the rights you have over it.

We aim to comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), as amended.

No complicated jargon, no funny business. Just a clear explanation of how we look after your information.

1. Who we are

#OnlyDogs is a professional dog grooming salon based in Lingfield, Surrey, specialising in kind, welfare-focused grooming for dogs of all breeds, sizes and temperaments.

Our contact details:

Business: #OnlyDogs
Address: 14 High Street, Lingfield, Surrey, RH7 6AA
Website: www.onlydogs.co.uk
Email: info@onlydogs.co.uk
Telephone: 01342 617971
Mobile: 07561 858709

For the purposes of UK data protection law, the organisation operating #OnlyDogs is the data controller responsible for deciding how and why your personal information is used

If you have any questions about this policy or how we use your information, please contact us using the details above.

2. What information do we collect?

When you contact us, book an appointment or use our services, we may collect the following information.

Your personal details:

Your name
Telephone or mobile number
Email address
Home or billing address, where needed
Appointment and booking information
Payment and transaction records
Messages and correspondence with us
Feedback, reviews and any preferences you choose to share

Information about your dog:

Although your dog isn’t covered by GDPR (we’re fairly sure they’re not too worried about data protection!), some information about them may be linked to you and therefore forms part of your customer record.

This may include:

Your dog’s name, breed and age
Grooming history and preferences
Relevant health, skin or coat information
Allergies, sensitivities or special requirements
Behavioural information that helps us groom your dog safely
Photographs taken during or after appointments
Emergency contact or veterinary details, where necessary

We collect this information to help ensure your dog receives safe, appropriate and individualised care.

We only ask for information that is relevant to providing our services, running our business or meeting our legal obligations.

Website information:

When you visit our website, certain technical information may also be collected, such as:

Your IP address
Browser and device type
Pages visited and website interactions
Cookie preferences
Information submitted through our contact forms

The exact information collected automatically depends on the website features and cookies in use.

3. Why do we use your information?

We use personal information for the following purposes:

To provide our grooming services

This includes making and managing bookings, contacting you about appointments, keeping grooming records and ensuring your dog’s wellbeing during their visit.

To communicate with you

We may contact you by telephone, text, email or WhatsApp to confirm appointments, answer questions, let you know when your dog is ready for collection or provide important information about their groom.

To keep accurate records

We keep appropriate records of services provided, payments, grooming requirements and important communications.

To keep everyone safe

Information about a dog’s behaviour, sensitivities or grooming requirements helps us protect your dog, our team and other visitors to the salon.

To manage our business

We use relevant information for accounting, administration, customer service, complaint handling and compliance with legal requirements.

To improve our website and services

We may use website performance information, customer feedback and service records to understand what works well and where we can improve.

For marketing, where permitted

If you have given us the appropriate permission, or another lawful marketing exception applies, we may contact you about relevant news, offers or services.

You can opt out of marketing messages at any time.

We will never sell your personal information or share it with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

4. Our lawful reasons for using your information

UK GDPR requires us to have a lawful basis for processing personal information.

Depending on the circumstances, we rely on:

Contract

Where information is needed to arrange an appointment, provide grooming services, process a payment or fulfil an agreement with you.

Legal obligation

Where we must retain or provide certain information to comply with the law, such as accounting and tax records.

Legitimate interests

Where it is reasonably necessary to operate and protect our business, maintain appropriate customer and grooming records, respond to enquiries, prevent fraud or improve our services, provided these interests are not overridden by your rights.

Consent

Where we ask for your permission, such as certain marketing communications, optional website cookies or identifiable photographs used for promotional purposes.

Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time. This will not affect anything lawfully done before you withdrew your consent.

We determine the appropriate lawful basis according to the specific purpose for which your information is used.

5. Online bookings

We offer online booking through a third-party booking platform, Topline Dogs.

When you make an online booking, you may be asked to provide information such as your contact details, information about your dog and your preferred appointment.

This information is used to manage your booking and provide our services.

Topline Dogs may also process personal information through its platform. Its own privacy arrangements may apply where it acts independently in relation to your information.

We recommend reviewing the privacy information provided by the booking platform when making an appointment.

We also accept bookings in person, by telephone, email, text and WhatsApp.

6. Payments

We accept payments by cash or card and may arrange advance payments where requested.

Where you pay by card, payment information is handled through the relevant payment service or card-processing provider.

We may retain transaction information necessary for accounting, refunds, resolving payment queries and meeting our legal obligations.

We do not require or retain your full card details as part of our ordinary customer grooming records.

Any third-party payment provider is responsible for applying appropriate security measures to the payment data it processes.

7. WhatsApp, text messages and other communications

We understand that life gets busy, especially when your four-legged companion has an appointment to keep!

You can contact us by telephone, text, email or WhatsApp.

We may also use these channels to send appointment-related information, including collection messages and photographs of your dog.

Where you communicate with us through third-party platforms, such as WhatsApp, the platform provider may process certain information in accordance with its own privacy policy.

We use these services for practical customer communications and do not treat an appointment-related message as permission to send unrelated marketing.

8. Photographs and social media

We absolutely love showing off the gorgeous dogs who visit #OnlyDogs!

However, we also believe in respecting our customers’ preferences.

We may take photographs of your dog as part of their grooming experience, for grooming records or to send to you following their appointment.

We will ask for your permission before using identifiable photographs of your dog for promotional purposes, including on our website or social media.

As explained in our FAQs, we do not publish dogs’ names alongside our social media grooming photographs or use ‘before’ photographs to shame customers.

If you would prefer your dog not to feature on our social media, that is absolutely fine. Just let us know.

You can also withdraw your permission for future promotional use by contacting us. Where reasonably possible, we will remove photographs from content under our control, although we cannot guarantee removal of copies already shared by other people or retained by third-party platforms.

We may use platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, which have their own privacy policies and data-processing practices.

9. Who do we share your information with?

We do not sell your personal information.

We may share limited personal information with trusted service providers where necessary to operate our business, including:

Our website provider, Webador
Our online booking platform, Topline Dogs
Card payment providers and financial institutions
Accounting or bookkeeping services
Email, telephone and messaging service providers
IT, hosting and website support providers
Professional advisers, insurers or relevant authorities where necessary

Where service providers process personal information on our behalf, we take appropriate steps to ensure suitable data protection arrangements are in place.

We may also disclose information where required by law, to respond to a legitimate legal request or to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

We only share information that is necessary and appropriate for the relevant purpose.

10. How we keep your information safe

We take the security of your personal information seriously.

We use appropriate organisational and technical measures intended to protect the information we hold against unauthorised access, accidental loss, alteration, misuse or disclosure.

These measures may include secure accounts, password protection, restricted access and the security protections provided by our trusted software and service providers.

Only people who need access to information for legitimate business purposes should have access to it.

Although no electronic system can guarantee absolute security, we take reasonable steps to protect your information and review our practices where necessary.

11. How long do we keep your information?

We only keep personal information for as long as it is reasonably necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, or where a longer period is required or permitted by law.

Different information may be retained for different periods:

Financial and accounting records: generally six years, or longer where required by applicable law.
Customer and grooming records: for as long as necessary to manage our customer relationship, provide ongoing services and deal with relevant queries or claims.
Enquiries: for as long as reasonably necessary to respond and manage any follow-up.
Marketing preferences: until you withdraw consent or opt out, with limited suppression records retained where necessary to respect your wishes.
Photographs: for as long as reasonably needed for their agreed purpose, subject to applicable rights and legal requirements.
Website information and cookies: according to the relevant technology’s purpose and retention period.

When information is no longer required, we securely delete it, anonymise it or otherwise dispose of it appropriately

12. Your data protection rights

Under UK GDPR, you have a number of rights relating to your personal information.

Depending on the circumstances, these include:

The right to be informed: to understand how and why we use your information.
The right of access: to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
The right to rectification: to ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information.
The right to erasure: to request deletion of your information in certain circumstances.
The right to restrict processing: to ask us to limit how your information is used in certain circumstances.
The right to data portability: to receive or transfer certain information in an appropriate format.
The right to object: to object to certain uses of your information, including direct marketing.
Rights relating to automated decision-making: protections where qualifying decisions are made solely through automated processing.

Not all rights apply in every situation, and some information must be retained to comply with legal obligations.

To exercise your rights, please email info@onlydogs.co.uk.

We may need to verify your identity before responding to certain requests.

We will respond without undue delay and normally within one calendar month, subject to any extensions permitted by law.

13. Cookies – the digital kind, not the dog biscuit kind! 🍪

Unfortunately, these cookies are not the sort your dog can enjoy!

Cookies are small pieces of information stored on your device when you visit a website.

They help websites work properly, remember certain preferences and, depending on the features used, provide information about how visitors interact with the site.

Our website is powered by Webador and may use cookies and similar technologies provided by Webador or other services integrated into the website.

Types of cookies

Strictly necessary cookies

These support essential website functions, such as security, navigation, storing privacy choices and operating a shopping basket where applicable.

They do not generally require consent where they meet a legal exemption.

Functional cookies

These may remember optional settings and help provide additional website features.

Where legally required, we will ask for permission before using them.

Analytics cookies

These may help us understand how visitors use our website, such as which pages are visited and whether the website is working effectively.

Where required by law, we will obtain consent before using analytics cookies or similar technologies. Certain narrowly defined uses may qualify for a legal exemption where the relevant conditions are met.

Marketing cookies

If we use advertising or marketing technologies, these may help measure promotional activity or show relevant content on other platforms.

Where required, these will only be activated after you have given your consent.

Cookies used on our website

The website’s cookie information should identify the cookies and similar technologies actually in use, including their providers, purposes and durations

We do not want to tell you that we use cookies we don’t actually use, or overlook any that we do.

Managing your cookie preferences

Where consent is required, you should be able to choose whether to accept or reject non-essential cookies.

Non-essential cookies requiring consent must not be activated before that consent has been given.

You should also be able to change or withdraw your cookie consent through the cookie preferences feature on our website.

You can additionally manage or delete cookies through your browser settings, although blocking certain essential cookies may affect how parts of the website work.

Currently we don’t have any cookies on the website so you can rest easy.

14. Third-party websites and links

Our website may contain links to external services, including:

Our online booking platform
Facebook
Instagram
Other relevant websites or services

When you follow a link to another website, that provider may collect and process your information under its own privacy policy.

We recommend reviewing the privacy information of any third-party website or service you use.

We are not responsible for the privacy practices of websites outside our control.

15. International transfers of information

Some third-party providers may store or process personal information outside the United Kingdom.

Where personal information is transferred internationally and UK data protection law requires safeguards, we will ensure that an appropriate transfer mechanism is in place.

This may include transfers to countries covered by UK adequacy regulations or the use of approved contractual safeguards, together with any additional measures required by law.

You can contact us if you would like further information about safeguards relevant to your personal information.

16. Children and young people

Our grooming services are intended to be arranged by adults or by individuals appropriately authorised to make bookings.

We do not knowingly use our website to collect personal information directly from children for marketing purposes.

If we discover that information has been collected inappropriately, we will take suitable steps to address the situation.

17. Marketing communications

We may occasionally wish to let customers know about services, promotions, availability or news from the salon.

We will only send electronic direct marketing where we have the necessary permission or where an applicable legal exception allows us to do so.

Where we rely on the existing-customer marketing exception, we will comply with the relevant requirements, including providing appropriate opt-out opportunities.

You can ask us to stop sending marketing communications at any time by emailing info@onlydogs.co.uk or using an unsubscribe method provided in the message.

Appointment reminders, booking confirmations and other essential service communications are different from promotional marketing.

Choosing not to receive marketing will not affect your grooming appointments.

18. Complaints and concerns

If you have any questions or concerns about how we handle your personal information, please get in touch.

We would always welcome the opportunity to look into your concerns and put things right where necessary.

Email: info@onlydogs.co.uk
Telephone: 01342 617971

If you make a data protection complaint, we will acknowledge it within 30 days, take appropriate steps to investigate and provide a response without undue delay.

You also have the right to complain to the UK’s independent data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Information Commissioner’s Office
Website: www.ico.org.uk
Telephone: 0303 123 1113

You can contact the ICO if you believe your personal information has not been handled in accordance with applicable data protection law.

19. Changes to this policy

From time to time, we may update this Privacy & Cookie Policy to reflect changes to our website, services, technology or legal requirements.

The most recent version will be available on our website, with the date of the latest update shown at the top.

Where changes require additional notice or fresh consent, we will take appropriate steps to provide it.

20. A final word from #OnlyDogs 🐾

Your trust means a great deal to us.

When you leave your dog in our care, you’re trusting us with a very important member of your family. We believe the personal information you share with us deserves just as much respect.

We’ll always aim to be clear, sensible and responsible about the way we handle your details.

Because at #OnlyDogs, looking after our customers is every bit as important as looking after their dogs.

Dogs, dogs and #OnlyDogs – with your privacy in safe paws. 🐾