When a pet is shared with family, not everyone gets every alert. Some alerts fan out to the whole family, some depend on a permission, and some only ever reach the tracker's owner. Here's the breakdown.
Jump to:
- Alerts that depend on a permission
- Alerts only the tracker's owner gets
- Family Sharing alerts
- On Android
- How to change a member's permissions
- "Access restricted"
- If a family member isn't getting alerts
Alerts that depend on a permission
| Alert | Who receives it | Permission needed |
|---|---|---|
| Safe zone, no-go zone, virtual-fence, hazard (danger-nearby) and separation-anxiety alerts | The tracker's owner, the pet's owner, and every active family member who has the permission — the same alerts the pet's owner gets | Location Tracking ("Access to GPS tracker on shared pets") |
| Calendar event reminders | Family members who have the permission. A member without it receives nothing for that pet's events | Calendar ("View & receive notifications for shared-pet events") |
Zone changes also sync live, so a member editing a zone sees the same progress the owner does. Whoever created an event doesn't get a duplicate of their own reminder.
Please note: Turn a permission off and the alerts that depend on it stop for that person.
Alerts only the tracker's owner gets
Alerts the device itself reports about its own condition go to the tracker's owner and nobody else:
- Battery below 20% and battery critically low
- Charging and fully charged
- Powered on and powered off
- Barking unusually high
Family members are never sent these, whatever their permissions.
Family Sharing alerts
These are the updates about the family itself, rather than about a pet:
| What happened | Who is notified | What they see |
|---|---|---|
| You send an invitation | The invitee | "{Your name} invited you to join their family" / "Your invitation code is {code}." plus an email and an in-app entry |
| Someone accepts | The family owner | "{Name} joined your family" |
| Someone declines | The family owner | "{Name} declined your invitation" |
| You remove a member | That member | "{Your name} removed you from their family" |
| A pet is un-shared | All other active members | "{Owner name} stopped sharing {pet}" / "{pet} is no longer shared with the family." |
Please note: Only family invitations appear in the in-app Notifications list. Accepted, declined, removed and un-shared alerts arrive as push notifications only — the resulting state lives in Settings → Family Sharing. If the owner has the app open when someone responds, a small "Invitation accepted." or "Invitation declined." message appears instead.
On Android
Family notifications arrive on two channels you can control in your phone's settings:
- Family Invitations — "Invitations to share pet care with family" (high priority)
- Family Updates — "Changes to shared pet access"
How to change a member's permissions
This is done by the pet owner.
- Go to Settings → Family Sharing.
- Open the member you want to change.
- Adjust their permissions.
The five permissions are Edit Pet Information, Location Tracking, Vet Consultation, Vet Call Bookings and Calendar. See the Family Sharing section of this help centre for what each one unlocks.
"Access restricted"
If a family member taps something they don't have permission for, they'll see an Access restricted message — for example "You don't have permission to view or manage this pet's calendar events. Please contact the pet owner for access." The only way to change that is for the pet's owner to switch the permission on.
If a family member isn't getting alerts
Check two things: that notifications are switched on for the Ask A Vet app, and that they still have the permission the alert depends on.
Tip: Family Sharing itself needs no other device permission — no Bluetooth, location, camera or photo access is involved.
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