A Block product designer spent 2 months vibe coding a dog ID app. Her top tip: Sometimes AI needs to be ‘babied.’

When Block product designer Cynthia Chen first dreamed up the idea of an app that could catalogue dogs spotted in the wild, she shelved it.

“The hurdle was so big, so I never did anything,” she said.

For five years, the dream sat untouched. Today, it’s live on the App Store.

Dog-e-dex — a playful name inspired by Pokédex (not DOGE) — lets users snap a picture of a dog, identify the breed using image recognition, and add it to a personal collection. Chen has two…