Felcana: More Than Just A 'Fitbit' For Dogs

We often get asked: "Oh, so is Felcana a Fitbit for dogs?"

Our answer: “It’s more than just a Fitbit for dogs.”

Here’s why:

Pet Activity Tracking is important but it can’t tell you everything!

It’s great that so many owners are aware that tracking their pet’s activity will help keep them fit and active.

The problem is though, that an active cat or dog doesn’t necessarily mean that your pet is completely healthy.

There could be underlying medical and behavioural problems that an activity tracker can’t monitor effectively.

Of course, we think fitness trackers for dogs and cats can be great. That’s why our Helix collar device has been designed to do exactly that - monitor your cat or dogs activity.

With some pet health conditions, for example, obesity, increasing and monitoring activity can help to combat and reverse the negative effects of the disease. And if your pet suffers from arthritis, an activity monitor is a great tool to help you understand how their condition is affecting them over long periods of time.

Felcana’s activity tracking capabilities help owners to understand, on a day to day basis, exactly what their pet is up to, as well as provide vets with reliable data to help diagnose and build tailored treatment plans.

It’s also great fun to be able to see just what Fido or Moggie has been up to all day – are they crazy and hyperactive running around the house, or do they just snooze and wait till you come home? If you’re trying to get fit yourself, pet activity trackers have also been show to help motivate owners to get fit too.

Behaviour tracking provides important information

So yes, pet fitness trackers are a fantastic idea in theory, but they need to be supplemented with other important information, if you want a comprehensive picture of your cat or dogs health.

Felcana gathers this extra information using Micro-Location Beacons. These small, subtle devices can be placed around the home, gathering data about your pet’s behavioural habits.

By placing Micro-Location Beacons on your pet’s food and water bowls, Felcana can monitor how frequently your pet is eating and drinking.

Food and water intake are key diagnostic metrics that your vet will want to understand to make accurate diagnoses. Changes to these are important to monitor as they can be indicators that your pet may have an underlying health condition.

By constantly gathering behavioural data, Felcana can also detect changes in your pet’s routine, helping to catch the early symptoms of disease much earlier. For example, if your cat starts to drink 7 times a day, when she used to only visit her water bowl twice a day, this could be a sign of diabetes or kidney disease.

Felcana will pick up on this change in behaviour, and notify you via the Felcana app, letting you know that a visit to the vet may be in order.

Dogs are very social creatures. Do you know what yours is doing when you’re away at the office, or out for dinner?

Most people don’t. This means that, unfortunately, many owners are unaware that their pets may suffer from separation anxiety. Using our beacon technology, combined with activity tracking data, Felcana can detect pacing, a classic sign of this condition.

Felcana's Micro-Location Beacons can also be placed on litter trays or cat flaps - this way you can understand how often your pet is *doing their business* and also monitor their escapades around the neighbourhood. Increased urination can be a sign of many kidney related conditions in cats, so tracking this is key to early and effective disease diagnosis.

And cats are pretty stoic creatures too - unlike dogs they don't always come and tell you when something's wrong with them, but tend to hide away. Less visits out of the cat flap, and less exploring outside, can be key indicators that there may be underlying, subtle health problems with your cat.

Activity + Behaviour = Healthy, Happy Pets

Neither activity tracking or behaviour monitoring on their own can give an accurate picture of how healthy your pet is, or indicate the onset of disease.

But by combining data from both of these, and analysing it using a series of machine learning algorithms Felcana can not only help you and your pet reach your fitness goals, but subtly monitor your pet's health and routine, throughout their whole life, and let you know when things change. We think the answer to healthy, happy pets is a holistic monitoring system - which is exactly what Felcana is.

So to answer the question: "is it a Fitbit for pets?"

No - Felcana is more than that.

Felcana is a proactive pet health monitoring system, for owners, for vets, and most importantly, for pets.

This blog post was written by Grace Nolan.