Why We Built Ralph: Turning Heartbreak Into Clarity

In February 2024, our lives changed when our beloved nearly 14-year-old Beagle, Ralph, was diagnosed with lymphoma. The world seemed to stop, and a single, impossible question loomed after the oncologist recommended chemotherapy:

How will we know if treatment is helping him, or just prolonging our goodbye?

This question wasn’t just abstract; it was the core of our fear. We knew we would do anything for Ralph, but ‘anything’ had to mean preserving his dignity and comfort, not just clinging to him out of fear of loss.

The Challenge of Emotional Decision-Making

When you love a pet, your judgment is easily, and understandably, clouded by emotion. We quickly realized we needed objective data to see clearly. We started looking for an app that could help us stay objective, but we couldn’t find anything.

The only thing we found was several websites mentioning the HHHHHMM Scale, a standard veterinary tool for quality of life assessment in palliative care. It was a great framework, but when we searched for a simple, daily way to track it (specifically, a mobile app), we found nothing.

We found ourselves constantly grappling with subjective feelings:

• “Is he eating less, or does it just feel that way because we’re anxious?”
• “Is his mobility declining today, or are we being overprotective?”
• “Are there genuinely more good days than bad, or are we simply holding on for ourselves?”

We needed a tool that could separate our profound love and fear from Ralph’s actual, day-to-day experience. This realization, that the necessary tool didn’t exist, is how the idea for Ralph was born.

The Birth of Ralph, the App

Seeing this clear need for objectivity and the gap in available tools, Rinaldo and I immediately started building the first version of Ralph. The goal was simplicity: evaluate six criteria from the HHHHHMM Scale daily and visualize the trends over time.

What we desperately hoped this simple tool would do:

1. Provide Objective Monitoring: Track Ralph’s overall wellbeing based on data, not just emotional memory.
2. Reveal Hidden Trends: Show us clearly if scores, like mobility, were worsening even after adjusting pain medication.
3. Separate Love from Reality: Most importantly, help us differentiate our fear of loss from Ralph’s actual quality of life.

Ralph’s Final Gift and Enduring Legacy

Though our sweet Ralph passed before the app was fully finished, we completed it in his honor. He gave us one final, profound lesson:

Quality of life isn’t measured in days, but in moments.

True love means making the hardest decisions with clarity, not just raw emotion. Every pet deserves dignity, comfort, and compassionate care. Inspired by him, we decided to share this tool with other pet parents navigating similar journeys.

The Evolution: From Tracker to Wellbeing Hub

The initial “Ralph” app was just the start. Pet parents began using it and telling us what else they needed. User feedback drove every single subsequent development:

• Pet Lump Tracker: Created because users needed more specific monitoring capabilities.
• Pet Wellbeing Hub: Born from the growing need to combine quality of life assessment with symptom tracking, weight monitoring, and comprehensive health management in one modular platform.

Today, Ralph helps families with a wide range of challenges: senior pets with arthritis, cancer patients undergoing treatment, and pets with chronic conditions like kidney disease or diabetes.

Every app exists because a pet family needed it. Every feature was shaped by real feedback. Every line of code honors Ralph’s memory by helping others.

If Ralph helps your family, and you are able to support our mission, we gratefully accept donations. But if you can’t, download it anyway. Ralph the Beagle, the best boy, would want it that way.