Lyft’s long-awaited Pet Mode matches drivers with those traveling with their furry friends
Monday is National Dog Day, and Lyft took the opportunity to get a feature similar to the one Uber has had for nearly five years. If you’re going somewhere with a furry friend, Lyft’s new Pet Mode lets you say you’re coming with them, ensuring you’ll find a driver to accommodate your dog or cat.
Like Uber Pet, Lyft’s Pet Mode adds an additional fee — in this case, $4 plus tax. The company says the money goes directly to the driver.
The new Pet Mode came in handy last year during the story of Tux the Cat, who was being taken to the vet by his owner Palash Pandey. A Lyft driver in Austin, TX, is accused of speeding with Tux (who is in the middle of the carrier) in the back seat of the car, ignoring Pandey’s pleas while slamming the window. The driver responded to Pandey’s mid-program messages, saying that he has no girlfriend.
Days went by as Pandey made calls to the Austin Police Department and posted virally on Reddit and X (Twitter). Eventually, the media picked up on the story, and the Lyft PR team went into crisis mode. CEO David Risher even stepped in.
Tux was eventually found under the stairs about a mile from the landing. It was a short-lived fiasco with a happy ending, but a feature that ensured passengers were matched with pet-loving drivers probably could have prevented it. “[The driver] he told me that if he had known I had a cat, he wouldn’t have picked me up,” The Washington Post Pandey reported saying. “He said he doesn’t like cats and was going to cancel the ride. The place I ended up at was a pet hospital, and I had a pet carrier, so it’s hard to find that one.”
