How we check what we say

Welcome Home: every tip has a source

The Welcome Home Map and its guides give general advice about bringing home a new cat or dog. Here is how we check it before it reaches you.

1. Every tip is traced to a source.Each tip is tied to a source we name on its page.
2. The whole family checks it.Every guide is checked by the entire family before it goes up: us and our five, with decades of reading about, working with and owning all manner of pets. We are not vets; for anything about health, call your vet.
3. Reward-based only.No dominance or “alpha” ideas, no spray bottles, and no shame.
4. Sources at the foot of every guide.Every guide ends with its list of sources, so you can read the originals yourself.
5. When sources disagree, we say so.Where the experts do not agree, the guide tells you that instead of quietly picking a side.

We don't promise fewer returns or fewer bites. We explain what good practice looks like. This is general information, not veterinary advice.

The quote library behind our cards

Every word is real.

Our cards, in the works now, will pair your pet with words worth saying. So every quote we offer comes from a real author, a real work, and a real year, and all three print right beside the words. When your card says Walt Whitman, 1855, that is exactly who wrote it and exactly when. Nothing in our library is invented, paraphrased, or pinned to a famous name because it sounds like something they might have said.

That means the card you send can carry real weight. The person who opens it gets your pet, your message, and a line that has already earned its place in the world.

Who is in the library

Our library spans centuries and continents.

From English and American letters: Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns, Charles Dickens, Kenneth Grahame, and many more.

From the wider world: Khalil Gibran, and Rumi in the classic 1898 translations of Reynold A. Nicholson and E. H. Whinfield. Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Rubén Darío, and José Martí in Spanish. Machado de Assis in Portuguese. Jean de La Fontaine in French.

And voices that reach further back still: Aesop, Homer, Marcus Aurelius, and the King James Bible among them.

A few examples, exactly as they appear in our library:

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d, I stand and look at them long and long.

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855

Through love thorns become roses, and through love vinegar becomes sweet wine.

Rumi, translated by E. H. Whinfield, 1898

Cultivo una rosa blanca En julio como en enero, Para el amigo sincero Que me da su mano franca.

José Martí, Versos Sencillos, 1891

Felizes os cães, que pelo faro dão com os amigos!

Machado de Assis, 1883

How we verify

Most of the pet quotes circulating online were never written by the people they are attributed to. We decided at the start that we would rather offer fewer quotes than repeat a single false one. So every entry in our library clears the same checks before you ever see it:

Traced to the original. Each quote is verified against the original publication, not against a quote site. We record the author, the work, and the year, and we keep the receipts.

Cleared for honest use. Every entry is confirmed to be in the public domain under both United States and international standards. When a quote is a translation, we verify the translator too, which is why our Rumi comes from the named 1898 translations rather than a modern paraphrase.

Rejected when it fails. Famous lines that cannot be traced to their claimed author never enter the library, no matter how beloved they are. We keep a written ledger of every rejection so the same false quote can never slip in later.

Checked again before printing. In July 2026 an independent verification pass rechecked the entire library, entry by entry: wording against the original texts, attribution, and public domain status. Anything that could not clear every check was set aside for further human review instead of being sold.

Why it matters

A card is a message from you to someone you love. The words on it should be able to bear that. When you choose a quote from our library, you can hand it over knowing the author really wrote it, the year is right, and the citation printed on the card will hold up to anyone who looks it up.

Your pet brings the joy. The library makes sure the words deserve the company.