Archive for the ‘pet tech’ Category

Yesterday, Tara wrote about her friend’s missing dog, and gave us some suggestions for what to do if your own pup goes missing. So scary! I really hope no one has to go through that. But if you’ve got a pooch with a tendency to roam where s/he shouldn’t, you might want to take note about a new product that’s about to be released that might make your life a little less stressful. Tagg, a device by Snaptracs, Inc. allows dog owners to monitor the whereabouts of their canines via GPS. With Tagg, owners can see the exact location of their furry friends on a map using their computers or smartphones, and the device will even notify them via text or email when Fido wanders into forbidden areas (a.k.a. the neighbor’s flowerbed).

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Back in 2002, PETA sent an undercover agent to film the conditions that dogs and cats were living in at the Sinclair Research Center in Missouri. No the animals weren’t used for some gruesome medical research or horrific beauty product testing, but rather they were being used to test the effects of pet foods by companies like Iams. The video was bleak to say the least and the public outcry led Iams to pull all their testing from Sinclair and invest $20 million to build their own R&D facility that treats research animals more like pets than specimens.

Dr. V of Pawcurious recently took a trip to the facility and wrote a bit about it on her blog. I was fascinated with what Iams had decided to do and how they did it so I asked Dr. V to write a more comprehensive piece on the facility (as well as the practice of testing pet foods on animals) for an upcoming feature in Good Dog.

While editing the piece this weekend I came upon the below video about the Iams Pet Health & Nutrition Center that, while very much promotional, showed some super cool tech features that I would love to incorporate at home.

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Since I live in the city with no car and — even worse — no Target, I do a lot of shopping online. I even do a lot of online “pet supply shopping” for my three-year-old-ish pup, Happy. Currently my strategy involves bouncing around a few different websites like Amazon and 1800petmeds, comparing prices and trying to work out free shipping. The adorable pet boutique close to my apartment is unfortunately out of my budget most of the time and doesn’t always have what I need so I purchase many of Happy’s staples online. I’ve also been known to stock up on treats at the big box stores when I find myself visiting one. With all this piecemeal shopping, I was pretty excited to hear about the launch of Wag.com. Read the rest of this entry »

This dog has quite the story. Naki’o and his littermates were abandoned last year when their family had to leave their home in Nebraska, which had been foreclosed. He stepped into an icy puddle in the basement at one point and got stuck in the freezing water. He and the other dogs in his litter were found and taken to a shelter, but Naki’o lost his paws and the end of his tail because of frostbite. His paws healed up, but he wasn’t able to walk on them, so he got around by crawling around on his stomach. Read the rest of this entry »