DogLogBook wants to make you a better pet owner through tech
Want to know "who's a Good Boy, who's a Good Boy now?" There's an app for that.
DogLogBook, which was created by a team from the Faculty of Veterinary Science at Sydney University, aims to empower pet owners by letting them record and track dog behaviour.
Paul McGreevy, a professor in the veterinary department, told Mashable he built the free app (iOS and Android) because of he wanted a better way of logging the information that dog owners have about their pets -- information he was unable to access from his office.
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"The app is the nearest thing I can think of to looking over the owner's shoulder and monitoring the many behaviours that are of veterinary significance," he said.
In addition to recording vaccination schedules and microchip data, the app will guide owners along a socialisation program for their dog before it reaches 14 weeks of age, the age at which socialisation efforts are less productive.
Owners can record stimuli the dog may experience and win points. In the country that stimuli may be things like cows or horses, in the city, buses or trucks. "We have gamified socialisation so that owners get more points for exposing their pups to the less easily accessible stimuli. So city owners get more points for country-based stimuli and vice versa," he added.
That 14-week period is vital to a dog's good behavioural development. "That's a way of reducing aggression in dogs, which is a major reason why dogs are euthanised," McGreevy explained.
Not just for house dogs, the app also has a path for working dogs, including farm dogs, scent detection dogs and guide dogs.
On the app, owners can record all sorts of behaviours like paw-chewing, bottom-scooting and head-shaking. "We're able to program the app so that owners will receive a prompt if they've observed a great deal of such behaviour, beyond a pre-set threshold, and perhaps need to talk to their vet," he said.
Such behaviours, when they accumulate, can indicate disorders including separation anxiety, fear-based aggression and possible canine dementia, he added.
Not simply a helpful tool for pet owners, the app will also accumulate anonymised data the university can use for veterinary studies. "If the uptake is as strong as we hope, it will be a trove of information about how management styles affect behaviours and welfare," McGreevy said.
McGreevy encouraged owners around the world to sign up. "We want to know about the management of all dogs," he said. "We're not worried about international borders. A dog is a dog. We'd welcome all users."
Topics Apps & Software
Ariel Bogle was an associate editor with Mashable in Australia covering technology. Previously, Ariel was associate editor at Future Tense in Washington DC, an editorial initiative between Slate and New America.
