Dog Owners Can Use Cell Phones Check In on Kenneled Dogs through Mobile Video

Most of us have watched cute golden retrievers prance around Madison Square Garden during the Westminster Kennel Club dog show on Animal Planet, or seen Cesar Milan, AKA “The Dog Whisperer,” mollify aggressive Neapolitan mastiffs on his National Geographic channel show of the same name.

 

We dog owners and dog lovers get a kick out of seeing our pets’ cousins – canines of the same breed – on TV screens. For some of us, our dogs are closer to siblings than mere retrievers, shepherds, guardians or companions.

 

But unless our dogs are participating in those shows, or are being rehabilitated by Milan (the man “rehabilitates” dogs but “trains” people, mind you), we can’t watch our own pets on TV when they’re away from us – even when we’re home.

 

That is, until recently. Many home security companies, or home video camera manufacturers, now offer systems that allow us to spy on our pets while they’re at home – whether it’s through video fed through TV screens or through the Internet on a computer monitor.

 

As TMCnet reported this week, one invention even tells us who our dogs are palling around with, and when they’re most active.

 

Now, thanks to a new invention from a Boulder, Colorado-headquartered dog kennel company, dog owners can get a load of their pets any time on their cell phones.

 

Officials at Camp Bow Wow – a day or overnight “camp” for dogs that has 86 locations in the United States and Canada – say they’ve joined Online Doggy to bring a new technology. With the companies’ joint product, pet parents receive a provider ID that they can use when logging onto mobiledogg.com from their mobile Web browser to see what their dogs are up to.

 

Heidi Flammang, chief executive officer of Camp Bow Wow – pictured right, with a pair of lovely black Labrador retrievers – said she’s excited to unveil this free service in time for the holiday season.

 

“Mobile Doggy will ease separation anxiety our customers experience when traveling, since they are only a cell phone connection away from seeing their furry friends playing and having fun at Camp,” Flammang said.

 

It seems dogs can’t escape their masters’ eyes these days.

 

The news out of Camp Bow Wow follows a report from TMCnet of a new product from a Boston-based company founded by a group of MIT (News - Alert) Media Laboratory graduates.

 

Officials at SNIF Labs say their flagship product, call the “SNIF Tag,” uses wireless sensing and social networking technologies to map out their dogs’ activities. The device also gives owners a chance to develop relationships with dog owners that their pets pal around with.

 

According to Noah Paessel, chief executive officer and co-founder of SNIF Labs, he and his colleagues loved the idea of using real-world social networking to let a dog do the relationship-building work and act as a kind of social catalyst.

 

“SNIF Tag not only gives dog owners peace of mind, it also offers a non-threatening way to meet new friends and companions via their dogs’ encounters,” Paessel said.

 

The tag (News - Alert) itself – a small device that attaches to a dog’s collar – essentially records the pet’s movements and, in some cases, social encounters, and then uploads that data to the Internet. An owner can find out by logging onto the company’s site whether their dog has been playing, resting or running around.