BUSINESS - Pet Tech Investors are Barking up the Right Tree

Pet technology, and the pet industry in general, has been called “recession proof,” citing the fact that during the 2008 financial crisis, the pet industry continued to grow.

Consumer spending overall shrank by 3% during the recession, but pet spending grew at 5% per year.

Those are some convincing, and encouraging, numbers for investors and business owners.

However, investors should still be cautious.

The resilience of the pet industry refers to the sector as a whole, and doesn’t mean that every pet stock will do well.

Investors need to look at each business as a unique and context-dependent case.

Individual companies can still sink if they don’t adapt to consumer demands and rapidly changing economic contexts.

Fresh pet food companies, for example, are subject to thin margins and increasing competition, and two companies – Freshpet Inc and Blue Buffalo Pet Products – have seen their stocks drop significantly.

On the other hand, pet healthcare companies aren’t subject to the same regulatory and policy debates that impact human healthcare, and these companies are doing well.

Pet technology is an area that’s heating up, and worth a close look.

2016 saw a record number of funding deals in this area, despite the overall drop in Venture Capital funding.

There are multiple factors at play that influence the popularity of pet tech stocks right now.

One important element is the millennials.

This is a generation heavily invested in their pets. They’re less likely than their parents to own a home or a car, but they’re much more likely to own a pet.

According to the Washington Post, “Three-fourths of Americans in their 30s have dogs, while 51 percent have cats, according to a survey released by research firm Mintel. That compares to 50 percent of the overall population with dogs, and 35 percent with cats.”

These individuals are marrying later, having kids later (when they have kids at all), and according to research by Wakefield Research, 76% of them are more willing to splurge on their pets than on themselves.

The economy drives some of these trends.

Pets are less expensive than children or houses, and Millennials have grown up with job scarcity and an abundance of student loan debt.

They aren’t big spenders, and they tend not to take big financial risks.

Their pets fill roles that previous generations have filled with both family and career goals and spending.

The other driving force behind the surge in pet technology stock is this generation’s love of wearable tech, integrated tech, Internet of Things, and other digital age devices and services.

Rover, which was the best funded company in the sector in 2016, matches pet owners with pet service providers such as dog walkers and pet sitters.

And BarkBox, which was similarly well-funded, has experimented with all kinds of digitally-integrated services, including BarkBuddy and BarkCam, marketed as Tinder and Instagram for dogs.

The industry, and the economy as a whole, will continue to change in response to global financial pressures and the quirks of the Millennial generation, but chances are good that pets will continue to be a solid choice for investment.

About Tiffany Sostar

Tiffany is a published academic, an editor with the Editors Association of Canada, an independent scholar and researcher, and a self-care and narrative coach. She is particularly interested in the intersection of technology and identity - how our tools shape our selves and change our stories, and in how the nature of work is changing as we incorporate more technology into our daily lives.

BUSINESS - Keeping up With Veterinary Technology

Today’s vets are faced with the potentially overwhelming, triple-threat task when it comes to technology and client care.

The first task is the fundamental requirement of keeping up to date on rapidly changing technology.

In a four-part series on practice building back in 2012, Today’s Veterinary Practice described “the dizzying changes in digital communication and practice information management systems (PIMS)” and the pace of change has only increased since that series of articles was published.

The Internet of Things for pets, which is driving many of the changes in veterinary technology by increasing connectivity and the ability of clients to access services remotely and collect data from smart devices such as collars, litter boxes, or food bowls, is growing exponentially.

The second task of the contemporary vet is to adapt and incorporate these new technologies into their practice in ways that are both fast enough to satisfy the modern consumer, and sustainable for the practice.

That is a tricky balancing act, since the cost of investing in new technology while technology is changing so rapidly can be daunting.  

But it’s the final task that is the most challenging and the most critical for the long-term success of contemporary veterinary practices.

Today’s vets must learn how to maintain trusting personal relationships with their clients while also introducing technology that replaces the established face-to-face relationship with one that is mediated by connected devices and distance.

The importance of that trust-based relationship cannot be overstated.

Although consumers are willing to engage with disembodied online businesses for products like custom pet food, when it comes to healthcare for both people and pets, that personal and trusting relationship remains a critical component.

Building trust through credibility, reliability, and clinical validation are all important parts of digital healthcare start-up success, and are all made more challenging by some technologies.

Adam Little is the Director of Veterinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Texas A&M University, and he sees trust-building as a necessary step between both the digital start-ups that provide technology to veterinarians, and between vets and their clients when implementing the new technology.

He also sees potential for vets to learn from cutting edge companies, like Uber, about how to incorporate, market, and sustain new technology in the practice.

New technology has a lot to offer veterinarians, both in terms of streamlining the client experience and also in allowing easier and more reliable data collection from the client’s home.

The technology is changing quickly, and this has the potential to be a great thing for contemporary vets.

Video-conferencing with specialists, offering remote appointments, and creating apps and web interfaces to increase communication and client compliance are all possible in the brave new world of veterinary technology.

But in order to make it into that new world, vets need to have access to good information and an investment of time and money in order to innovate and stay relevant.

About Tiffany Sostar

Tiffany is a writer, editor, academic, and animal lover who came late to her appreciation of pets. At 18, a rescue pup named Tasha saved her from a depression and she hasn't looked back. She has worked as the canine behaviour program coordinator for the Calgary Humane Society, and was a dog trainer specializing in working with fearful and reactive dogs for many years. She doesn't have any pets right now, but makes up for it by giving her petsitting clients (and any dogs she comes across on her frequent coffee shop adventures) extra snuggles.

DIGITAL - Internet of Things for Pets and Pet Owners

There are few things as heartbreaking as a lost pet, a lonely pet, or a sick pet.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is here, and developers are working on technology that will help owners find their lost pets, interact with or care for their pets while they’re at work, and recognize signs of sickness early.

The most noticeable advance in smart technology for animals is wearables.

(voyce.com)

Wearable technology for pets is allowing owners to monitor their pets’ location, health, and behaviour, and it’s a quickly growing market with many opportunities for developers to try something new.

Earlier iterations of IoT for pets included the ongoing Cat Tracking Project, which uses GPS collars to track the movements of pet cats that are allowed to roam, and the Treat and Train, which allowed dog owners to deliver a treat remotely to help train dogs for better behaviour at the door and in the home.

These early ideas have evolved into the new marketplace of both wearable and remote pet tech.

A new San Francisco company, Whistle, hopes to use the information collected by wearable technology to create a social network for dogs (and their owners).

Anicall, a Japanese company, is also tying their wearables to a social network. Anicall collars use Bluetooth, rather than the standard GPS and Wi-Fi, which gives it better battery life (though limits the range). The system promises to help locate lost pets by notifying any nearby Anicall apps when a pet runs away, and also monitors health by tracking heart rate and respiration.

Other wearables such as Voyce and FitBark also help owners track their pet’s health by monitoring heart rate, respiration, and activity levels in addition to the standard GPS location tracking.

Just like human wearables, some of the devices being designed for animals feature a lot of flash.

Disco Dog is a smartphone-controlled, LED-lighted dog vest. The vest can display patterns, or custom scrolling text, and can be set to show an automatic “lost dog” message if the connection to the smartphone is lost.

Some of that flash will require further research. Anicall has a “mood monitoring” feature that promises to help you read your pet’s mind, and it will be interesting to see if their interpretations of behaviour hold up once the research catches up to the tech.

Wearables aren’t the only IoT technology for pets.

Remote devices include camera and microphone systems that allow two-way communication while the pet is at home and the owner is away.

PetCube, which is just finishing up a second Kickstarter campaign, promises to allow owners to check in on pets via two-way camera and microphone and either feed them a treat remotely or engage them in play with a built-in laser toy, and iCPooch allows video chat and remote treat delivery.

The IoT is growing rapidly, with an estimated 38 billion connected devices by 2020, and the range of devices being developed for animals is expanding in multiple directions at once.

More and more, the “internet of animals” is making its way into pet owner’s homes, veterinary offices, farms, zoos, wildlife conservation efforts, and almost every other element of human interaction with animals.

By Tiffany Sostar

Tiffany is a writer, editor, academic, and animal lover who came late to her appreciation of pets. At 18, a rescue pup named Tasha saved her from a depression and she hasn't looked back. She has worked as the canine behaviour program coordinator for the Calgary Humane Society, and was a dog trainer specializing in working with fearful and reactive dogs for many years. She doesn't have any pets right now, but makes up for it by giving her petsitting clients (and any dogs she comes across on her frequent coffee shop adventures) extra snuggles.

FUTURE TRENDS - PlayDate Smart Ball

(PlayDate)

The internet is buzzing with people talking about PlayDate - a wifi enabled, remote controlled ball that enables a pet owner to play with their dog or cat from anywhere.

InfoStream first brought PlayDate to readers’ attention in Pet Tech: So Much More Than a Fad and it is fast becoming the ‘next big thing’ for pet owners.

While there have been high-tech pet products on the market for a while, PlayDate has taken off in a big way - they initiated their online funding drive and pre-sales on April 19th and were 601% funded by May 27th.

The speed with which and amount they exceeded their funding goal may indicate this is the true launching point in a trend for high-tech, interactive pet toys.

PlayDate has a camera inside the ball that allows owners to see their pet and where the ball is going.

Additional features include a virtual “squeak” that can be triggered from a button in the app, a microphone that allows owners to hear their pets and speaker so they can talk to them.

Pet owners can also snap photos and record videos of their pets playing with the smart ball.

Purchasers will need to be patient - estimated delivery date for pre-orders is December of this year.

HEALTH - Veterinarian Urges Caution Around Home Pet Health Devices

Some pet health technologies are turning heads.

One example is Petnostics – a $10 disposable cup with a lid equipped with an integrated urine test strip. Combined with the Petnostics app on your SmartPhone, pet owners can then use the app to scan the test strip and be alerted to potential health concerns.

While proactivity with pet health is encouraged by the veterinary community, Dr. Danny Joffe of Associate Vet Clinics in Calgary advises pet owners looking to purchase home-use pet health trackers to use caution.

“The question is always should people be using home checking devices? Or will they have pet owners chasing red herrings and result in even higher veterinary costs than anticipated?”

According to their website, the goal of Petnostics is to allow pet owners to perform the same urine test vets perform at their clinics - “at a fraction of the cost of a vet visit, you'll be able to better engage with your pet's health.”

Joffe said while the most effective method for testing an animal to see if there are viable health concerns continues to be blood and urine analysis, he is wary of any low-cost home testing kit (for urine) because they could trigger unnecessary fears in pet owners by detecting every minor abnormality that a licensed veterinarian may consider to be of no actual concern.

“There’s no magic bullet,” said Joffe, who added that a pet health tool he is in favour of is an activity tracker that a dog could use as a collar – for example, a FitBark or another type of Fitbit-model collar for canines; these collars are typically used to measure heart rates, respiratory rates and may have the ability to indicate levels of pain. Joffe said they should be used in conjunction with veterinary assessments to monitor your pet’s ongoing health.

American reality investor show, Shark Tank, showcased Petnostics recently as presented by founder/owner Stephen Chen. His presentation was a success, resulting in investments from two show hosts – Kevin O’Leary and Lori Grenier – for a combined stake of 20%.

By Lindsay Seewalt

Lindsay is an experienced journalist and mother of three whose heart and home is always open to a four-legged friend. With her Corgi, Angie, as household editor-in-chief, Lindsay gives back to the animal planet through the written word on anything and all ado about pets. She is passionate about topics regarding animal welfare and responsible pet ownership, which she aims to instill in both her readers and children to be compassionate animal lovers who are conscious and considerate that furry friends around the globe deserve a voice.

BUSINESS - Pet Tech: So Much More Than a Fad

Sometime between iPhone editions, advancements in pet technology have made leaps and bounds and the obsession in the consumer market has transcended into the pet world.

PlayDate

Certainly, if North Americans can track every detail of their lives – from every step, breath, heartbeat and calorie ingested – it seems like a natural progression for pet lovers to dabble in the various technologies that can alleviate racing home on time to feed their Fido, throw a ball on autopilot or speak to their anxiety-ridden pup through the convenience of a computer.

As California and the U.K. vie for the title of animal tech capital of the world, the innovations are constant and dynamic. From auto pet feeders, to activity trackers to spying devices – the conscientious pet owner can literally keep her pet entertained, fed and exercised from the remote click of a button.

Here are some of the top trends for the tech-obsessed pet lover on the market right now:

Exploding from a grassroots Kickstarter campaign in 2013, iFetch was the end product for the Hamill family of Austin, TX – who realized an auto-pitch device to throw balls for toy poodle Prancer was more than just a great distraction for their precious pet, it was the beginning of a great prototype.

“There wasn’t anything like this available and we’ve captured a small piece of a growing high-tech segment of the market,” said iFetch president, Denny Hamill, who thought up the device with the help of grandson, Grant.

Dubbed as ‘the world’s first truly interactive pet camera,' enter PlayDate – a pet camera in a smart ball.

According to pet techies, the beauty of PlayDate is that it can be handled from its owner’s mobile device app to ‘Play. Anytime. Anywhere.’

So as not to ostracize the feline persuasion, PlayDate has a cat version that includes a slit in the polycarbonate shell for ribbon inserts; this outer shell is said to be thick and shatterproof.

For the more elite pet techies, Dogtra offers up the ‘world’s finest e-collars’. These e-collars are said to be user-friendly and designed for the ‘most demanding training conditions’.

The possibilities for pet tech appear endless. As the digital age continues to evolve, these technologies will only continue to improve and close the distance gap between working parent and fur-clad offspring.

By Lindsay Seewalt

Lindsay is an experienced journalist and mother of three whose heart and home is always open to a four-legged friend. With her Corgi, Angie, as household editor-in-chief, Lindsay gives back to the animal planet through the written word on anything and all ado about pets. She is passionate about topics regarding animal welfare and responsible pet ownership, which she aims to instill in both her readers and children to be compassionate animal lovers who are conscious and considerate that furry friends around the globe deserve a voice.