Affiliate Disclosure

1. What an affiliate link is

An affiliate link is a link to a retailer that carries a code identifying us. If you click it and buy something, the retailer pays us a small percentage of the sale. The price you pay is exactly the same as it would be if you had typed the retailer’s address into your browser directly.

This is how the site is funded. Kennel and Kin is free to read, carries no subscription, and asks for no donations. Advertising and affiliate commissions pay for the research, the writing, and the editing.

3. Programs we take part in

We currently participate in the following affiliate programmes:

• Amazon Services LLC Associates Program
• [ADD OR DELETE — e.g. Chewy Affiliate Program]
• [ADD OR DELETE — e.g. Petco Partner Program]
• [ADD OR DELETE — any affiliate network you use]

We update this list when it changes. If you want to know whether a specific link earns us anything, ask us and we will tell you.

4. How we mark affiliate links

You should never discover after the fact that a link earned us money. We mark them in three places:

At the top of the article

Any article containing affiliate links carries a notice above the content, before you have read or clicked anything.

Beside the link itself

Individual affiliate links are marked, so the disclosure is where your eye already is rather than somewhere you would have to scroll to find.

In the site footer

A standing disclosure appears on every page of the site, including this one.

If you find an affiliate link on this site that is not marked, that is a mistake and we want to hear about it. Write to contact@kennelandkin.com and we will fix it.

5. What a commission does not buy

• It does not buy a recommendation. If the product that suits you best earns us nothing, we recommend it anyway.
• It does not buy silence about a flaw. Safety concerns and weaknesses appear in the article even where we earn a commission on the product.
• It does not buy a topic. No retailer or brand can commission an article or ask us to cover something.
• It does not buy a preview. No affiliate partner sees an article before it is published.
• It does not buy a link. We do not sell links or accept payment to insert one into an existing article.

6. How we decide what to recommend

We set the criteria before we look at products. An article about crates explains what matters — sizing, door design, materials, how it handles a dog that panics — and only then names anything that meets those criteria.

We state plainly how we assessed something: whether we used it, examined it, or compared it on published specifications and owner reports. We do not describe hands-on testing we did not do.

Where the right answer is “you do not need to buy anything,” we say that too. An article that concludes with no purchase is not a failed article.

7. Free samples and review units

We occasionally receive a product at no cost. When that happens, we say so in the article. Receiving something free buys no coverage and no favourable treatment, and we tell brands this before accepting anything.

We do not accept payment in exchange for a review, a rating, or a place in a list. Please do not send products without emailing info@kennelandkin.com first.

8. Prices and availability

Prices and availability change constantly and are accurate only at the moment an article was written or last reviewed. Always check the current price on the retailer’s own page before buying. Where a price appears in an article, treat it as a guide, not a quote.

We are not the seller. Your purchase is a contract between you and the retailer, and questions about delivery, returns, warranty, or faults go to them rather than to us.

9. Advertising is separate

This site also carries display advertising served by third parties, including Google. Those advertisements are chosen automatically by the ad system, not selected by us, and their presence says nothing about our view of the advertiser.

Display advertising and affiliate links are separate arrangements. Neither gives anyone influence over our editorial decisions.

10. No sponsored posts, no paid links

We do not publish sponsored articles, advertorials, or content written or paid for by a brand. We do not sell dofollow links, link insertions, or guest posts, and we do not accept payment to remove a critical mention.

If this ever changes, this page will change first and any such content will be labelled clearly as paid.

11. Cookies set by affiliate links

Clicking an affiliate link usually sets a cookie from the retailer or affiliate network so that a later purchase can be credited to us. That cookie is set by them, not by us, and it lasts for however long that programme specifies.

We do not receive your name, address, or payment details from any purchase — only a record that a sale occurred and what commission it generated. What happens on the retailer’s site is governed by their privacy policy.

12. If you would rather not use our links

That is entirely fine, and it will not change what you can read here. Search for the product yourself, or type the retailer’s address directly into your browser. Nothing on this site is hidden behind a click, and no article requires you to buy anything.

We would rather you trusted the recommendation than felt obliged to use the link.

13. Compliance

This disclosure is written to meet the standards that apply to us and to our readers, including:

• The United States Federal Trade Commission’s Endorsement Guides, which require material connections to be disclosed clearly and conspicuously.
• The Amazon Services LLC Associates Program Operating Agreement.
• Indian consumer protection rules on endorsements and misleading advertising, and the Advertising Standards Council of India’s guidelines on disclosure in digital media.
• The UK Advertising Standards Authority’s CAP Code, for readers in the United Kingdom.

Our intention is simpler than any of those frameworks: you should always know when we stand to make money, before you act on what we wrote.