Coolest Dog Tech Gadgets

GoBone – Interactive Toy:

Modern pet owners know all too well how difficult it can be to keep our dogs entertained. The breeds that we keep as family pets today were often bred for complicated and challenging work. Those instincts and energy don’t have sufficient outlets in most modern households.

While we are at work or when we want some downtime, it can be challenging to provide sufficient entertainment for our dogs to keep them happy and out of trouble. Edible chew toys and food dispensing toys can occupy dogs, but obesity is a serious problem among American dogs, so continuously providing our dogs with food to entertain them isn’t ideal.

The GoBone Interactive Bone provides an innovative solution to a modern problem. This bone provides much-needed entertainment and stimulation for your dog, whether you are at home or away. This toy works in two distinct ways:

1. In Autoplay Mode, the bone will move for 10 continuous minutes and then rest for 20 minutes. This pattern maintains interest in the toy and also gives your dog plenty of time to rest and drink water between play sessions. The toy can maintain this pattern every 30 minutes for 8 hours before it needs to be charged. This means that your dog can be thoroughly entertained for the entire time that you are at work.
2. In Freestyle Mode, you take control of the GoBone, providing an interactive game for your dog. Playing with your dog in this way is a great way to occupy her without having to do very much yourself. You can control the bone using your smartphone as if you were playing a video game.

In case your dog needs even more motivation to play, this toy can also function as a treat dispensing toy. This can be incredibly valuable as a way to occupy your dog and slow feeding. Since the toy moves by itself, your dog achieves a sense of chase and reward that will stimulate her to keep playing with the toy even when the food is gone.

This toy sets you up for success. It comes with a step-by-step Bonding Mode Process to ensure that your dog loves her new toy. This durable bone is made to be chewed on by the average dog. You can easily disassemble the GoBone for thorough cleaning and charging.

Our Take

We really like the GoBone Interactive Bone for dogs who aren’t easily entertained when we are away and are demanding of our attention when we are home. This toy provided hours of entertainment for dogs who turn up their noses at other toys. This was also a great tool for building confidence in shy dogs, especially when the food dispensing feature was used.

We don’t think this toy would last very long with powerful chewers. We wouldn’t leave it alone with any of our dogs that tend to destroy toys. It is durable enough for rough treatment and some chewing, but for our dogs who are determined to annihilate anything that they get their teeth on, this toy is not the best choice.

We found the bonding program to get our dogs interested very effective. We did not, however, notice much difference in programming for different dogs as advertised by the personalized play aspect of this toy. That said, most of the dogs that we thought this toy would be appropriate for seem to like it anyways.

iFetch Ball Launcher:

Does your dog really love playing Fetch? Are you the person explaining to friends and family that your dog’s Fetch addiction is actually impacting your life in a negative way? Lots of dogs enjoy retrieving, but some dogs take this pleasure to another level. If your dog likes to play Fetch a lot more than you do, you may find yourself exhausted and frustrated at the end of your day instead of enjoying time with your dog.

The iFetch Ball Launcher plays Fetch with your dog so that you don’t have to. While there is no substitute for one-on-one time with your dog, a device that allows your dog to get her energy and retrieval drive out of the way gives you the chance to do something besides play Fetch in the time that you spend with your dog.

This toy not only provides the physical stimulation of fetching the ball, but also continuously teaches your dog problem-solving because she needs to bring the ball back to the launcher and drop it in appropriately, in order to play again.

This incredible toy can keep launching the ball for up to 300 Launches on one charge, so your dog will be entertained all day or for weeks without you having to worry about it. The launcher can throw the ball at a distance of 10, 25, or 40 ft. Choose which distance you would prefer, or let the iFetch choose at random so that your dog stays on her toes.

Want to play inside? No problem. There is a sliding lock to keep the launcher set at 10 feet no matter how many times the button is pushed. You can safely leave the iFetch for your dog to play with inside without worrying that she will accidentally put a ball through the window.

The ball is launched as soon as your dog drops it into the launcher, which minimizes the possibility that your dog will be hit by the ball. You can train your dog while the launcher is set at the 10-foot distance so that even if your dog does get hit, the ball won’t hurt her. To train your dog to use the launcher appropriately, simply teach her to drop the ball in from behind so that she won’t be hit by it.

Our Take

Our dogs who like to play Fetch adore the iFetch Ball Launcher, and so do we. This versatile machine provides hours of entertainment indoors and out. Our energetic dogs loved the distance that this machine could throw. We appreciated that we could lock the 10-foot distance for indoor play. Our dogs who normally beg us for a game of Fetch as soon as we come in the door were willing to just hang out and enjoy our company after a day of playing indoors with the iFetch.

As long as our dogs didn’t attack the iFetch in frustration if it jammed or drop globs of drool into it, we found that the iFetch held up very well to long-term use. Even when our dogs did manage to damage the iFetch, the company was great about replacing it within the one-year warranty period. Our most drooly dogs did manage to gum up the works with lots of play. We found that when the iFetch gets too wet we need to let it dry out to prevent the ball from sticking.

We would have liked an option to keep this launcher from working continuously since our dogs who really love Fetch sometimes played too much and exhausted themselves. It’s hard to complain about a toy that is so fun that dogs just want to keep playing with it, however. Most of our dogs were able to control themselves and played an appropriate amount when left to their own devices with his toy.

PetCube Bites Camera:

Separation anxiety is one of the most serious issues affecting pets and their people today. A staggering number of dogs experience extreme anxiety when left alone. Dogs may express a range of behaviors resulting from anxiety,  from constant pacing to scratching at doors and windows, trying to escape, destroying things or self-injuring.

This disorder can be extremely frustrating since there is little that can be done to control it when you are not home. For many people, Doggie Daycares or Pet Sitters are not a practical or financially feasible way to alleviate their dog’s anxiety. Petcube was developed to help dogs suffering from anxiety while their human family is away.

This incredible device lets you see your dog in HD quality and hear clearly, but it also enables you to talk to your dog and toss treats. You can speak to your dog when she is exhibiting anxiety and use positive reinforcement in the form of treats to encourage calm behavior.

The included app can be accessed on your iPhone or Android smartphone. A free video cloud storage plan is included to store video of your favorite moments. If your dog is moving around, pacing, or barking, you will be notified with motion and sound alerts. Major disturbances that are triggered by sound or motion are automatically recorded to an interactive timeline and allow you to play up to four hours at a time. You will know what your dog was doing even if you can’t watch in real time.

A high-capacity, dishwasher-safe two-pound container holds enough treats to reward your dog for good behavior all day long. Control the number of treats that are flung from one to five treats at a time. You can throw larger amounts of kibble to entertain your dog or just one treat to reward a specific behavior.

The number of treats and the setting for large or small treats can be adjusted from the app remotely. Treats can be distributed automatically on a set schedule. You will be notified when you are running low on treats.

Do you want to be able to keep an eye on your dog wherever she goes in your house? You can pair up to six cameras to the PetCube so that you can watch every area of your home while you are away.  You can see even in the dark using the night vision feature. Three times digital zoom lets you see every detail. If your dog is doing something great,  you can live stream directly to social media or save the clips. Family and friends can also check in on your pets. Just add their usernames into your settings.

If you want even more from your Petcube, you can subscribe to the optional membership: Petcube Care. This plan allows 3, 10, or 30 days of history in cloud video storage. Video recordings are also extended with the optional plan, up to 30 seconds. This plan also gives you access to additional savings on services and food.

Our Take

The Petcube worked great for training our dogs when we weren’t home. The large treat capacity allowed us to put enough kibble or treats in to occupy our dogs for the entire day. While we thought the audio could be better for communicating specific commands to our dogs or comforting dogs who are suffering from severe separation anxiety, the ability to get our dog’s attention with the audio and then reward them for desirable behavior was invaluable for our dogs who barked or misbehaved at home.

We especially love that this device notified us when our dogs barked so that we could correct them and reward them for being quiet. It is also very convenient that we can pair multiple cameras so that we can see what our dogs are up to no matter where they are in the house. We like the night vision feature and the capacity for zoom as well.

The Petcube wouldn’t connect to Wi-Fi everywhere in our home, so there was a bit of a setup process while we figure out where the Petcube connected best. With our more clever dogs, we had to be careful to make sure that the Petcube was out of reach, since some dogs figured out how to get into the treat container.

Furbo Camera:

Here is a gadget so cool that even Ellen DeGeneres featured it on her show. This is the best selling dog camera and also distributes treats. You can use a variety of hard dog treats with this device. Up to 100 treats or pieces of kibble can be fit.

The barking alert is adjustable so you’ll pick up the sound of your dog’s barking and not the neighbor’s dog. This way you will know if your dog is barking even if you are not actively monitoring the camera. You can communicate with the Furbo using Alexa, from telling it to throw a treat to scheduling treat throwing.

This is a great device for correcting inappropriate barking at home as well as working on anxiety. Since this device only responds to barking and not to motion or other sounds, you will know every time that you are notified that your dog is actually barking.

The full 1080p full HD camera features night vision so that you can see your pet in perfect clarity during the day or night. The 160-degree wide-angle lens allows you to see the entire room in which the Furbo is placed. A 4 x zoom lets you see detail during the night or day.

This device lets you see and talk to your pet as well as toss treats and receive barking alerts with or without a subscription, but if you want to record, receive specialized alerts, and other fun features like a Doggy Diary, you can choose the optional subscription. The Furbo comes with a free 90-day subscription so that you can decide whether this is something that you want.

With the subscription, Furbo will let you know not only when your dog is barking, but will also notify you of particular movements like chewing on cords or jumping on furniture. This feature can be very useful for detecting separation anxiety since you can see if your dog is moving in specific patterns like pacing or licking.

The subscription also allows you to set a person alert so that you will know when someone comes in. This is useful as a security measure in case there is an intruder, but also so you know that your dog walker is on time. Another cute feature of the subscription is the dog Selfie Alert. Furbo can tell when the dog is facing the camera and will take an adorable selfie of her for you. All of these additional alerts are optional so that you can customize your experience.

The subscription also features Cloud on events like particular motions of your dog or barking. You can look back on the day even if you haven’t been able to observe actively and see the most important aspects of what your dog did all day.  The Doggie Diary feature gives you all of the highlights of your dog’s day in 60 Seconds. You can see everything that your dog did in a short highlight-reel so that you don’t have to watch the whole day of recordings.

Our Take

We loved the Furbo for our dogs with anxiety and for dogs that need correction for barking at home. The bark detection is very sensitive to barking alone, so when we didn’t want to be alerted to anything besides inappropriate barking, we could depend on the Furbo. We also found that the audio quality was quite good on the Furbo as long as it was close to the Wi-Fi source, so we could comfort our dogs with separation anxiety.

The Furbo doesn’t hold as many treats as we would like for our dogs who need to be occupied throughout the day, but for our dogs who only needed a few high-value treats, it was very effective. We liked the hundred and sixty degree wide angle view which allowed us to see the entire room clearly. It would have been convenient to have the capacity to attach more cameras so that we could see our entire house. For those of us who keep dogs in only one room while we are away, the Furbo works perfectly.

We found it convenient that we could use Alexa for treat distribution as well. This made the Furbo a fun gadget to use even when we are home since we could reward dogs for good behavior without letting them know that it is us that is providing every reward. This is a great way to reinforce the right behavior even when you’re not in the room.

PetNet Auto Feeder:

Does your dog start begging at feeding time? Because your dog associates her daily feeding with you, she is likely to beg you for food. If you would rather your dog not make this association, you can utilize this PetNet automatic feeder.

Free feeders encourage dogs to overeat and may cause obesity, but if your pet needs to be fed at particular times because of medical reasons or in order to maintain ideal health for athletic pursuits, you may be at a loss as to how to provide your dog with the feeding schedule that is best for her.

The PetNet auto feeder provides personalized feeding for your pet on the schedule that is right for you and your pet. This feeder can automatically detect the ideal portion for your pet based on the input you provide on the breed, weight, age, and activity level. You can preset the times that you would like your dog to be fed or you can feed from the app on your phone. By pairing this device with a video monitor, you can reward your dog for particular behaviors or distract her with food when she is anxious or bored.

You will be notified on your smartphone when your pet has been fed. Food level sensors let you know when your food is running low so that you can refill it. The food container is removable and very easy to clean. It holds from 5 to 7 lb of dry food. The PetNet has a pet-proof self-locking lid that keeps air from getting into the container and also keeps your pet from opening it.

The simple and attractive bowl is dishwasher safe and holds up to 2.5 lb of dry food. This device works with Amazon Alexa. Simply ask  Alexa to feed the amount you want. You will never need to measure your pet food again.

Our Take

The PetNet worked wonders for our pets who tend to beg too much. While we don’t mind a little bit of begging, it is frustrating to be aggravated by our dogs for an hour every day before dinner time. The PetNet distributes exactly the right amount of food and keeps it perfectly fresh, so even our fussy eaters were happy with the kibble that was distributed.

We liked that the PetNet could determine the correct amount of food for our dogs based on basic information about them. Using the app or Alexa to control the device was very convenient, and it was reassuring to receive confirmation that our pets had eaten while we were away.

We didn’t try this device with our destructive chewers since we don’t think it would survive a persistent attack. That said, the self-locking lid was able to keep out the average dog. There is a definite noise made when the device distributes food. Our dogs were willing to eat anyways, but some were startled initially by the noise. The sound can also be frustrating for you if you want the feeder to go off in the middle of the night or another time when you are home.

We found this device easy to clean and maintain, especially since the PetNet tells us when it is time to refill or order new food. The bowl is easily removable and the container is convenient to clean.

FitBark 2 – Dog Activity Monitor:

You want to do everything that you can to make sure that your dog is as happy and healthy as possible. If you want to know how your dog is doing when you’re with her and when you are away, the Fitbark 2 can help. This convenient little device fits on your dog’s collar and monitors 24/7.

You can monitor your dog’s activity, her sleep quality, the calories that she has burned, the distance that she has traveled, as well as her overall health and behavior, all with this one convenient device. You can even see how your dog compares to other dogs of similar breed, age, and weight.

By linking your own health tracker, you can get active with your dog. You can link your own Fitbit, Healthkit, Apple watch, Google fit, or Jawbone. There is no one better than your dog to motivate you to get healthy.

The battery lasts up to 6 months, so you won’t have to worry about changing the battery too often. This handy little device is light enough for any dog to wear comfortably and is rugged and waterproof enough to handle whatever your dog gets into.

Is there someone else in your dog’s life who wants to monitor her health and activity? You can invite your veterinarian, trainer, dog walker, or anyone else to monitor your dog as well. By following the FitBark health index you can catch early signs of disease or discomfort.

Do you worry that your dog is stressed out when you are gone or notice potential signs of anxiety around certain events in her life? The Fitbit can monitor your dog’s anxiety and stress so that you know how she does at certain times. This objective measure can be a great way to tell if your dog is anxious if she is otherwise not very communicative about her stress levels.

If your dog tends to have skin or ear issues, allergies, hot spots, etc, you can spot the very earliest developments of a new outbreak by carefully monitoring itchiness with the sleep score.

Our Take

We take our dog’s health seriously, so we really like this device because it is an affordable and reliable way to see a lot about our dog’s health and track health over time. We kept finding new uses for this gadget. It was a great way to let us know if our dogs experience anxiety when we left them alone or exposed them to something new. It also told us whether our dogs that tend to have allergies, hot spots, ear infections, or other chronic problems were beginning to have an outbreak.

This FitBark was very easy to use and it was fun to link it to our own health monitoring systems and compare our dog’s health to other dogs. We also love that we could share our dog’s FitBark progress with veterinarians or other people who care about our dogs.

We found that the removable cover fell off pretty easily, so while it is fun to be able to choose covers in different colors, we were annoyed by how easy it was to lose them. With everything that this little device can do, it seems silly to want more, but we still wish there would have been a GPS tracker as well.

Sonic Dog Barking Control Device By Openuye:

Does the barking of your dog or your neighbor’s dog drive you crazy? Barking is one of the most common problems with dogs and one of the reasons that many people have to give up their beloved companion. Shock collars or collars that spray deterrent at your dog’s face when they bark may cause harm to your dog and make you feel bad about using them.

The Openuye works by annoying your dog when she barks as much as her barking annoys you. An ultrasonic sound similar to a dog whistle goes off whenever your dog barks. Your dog will find this sound aggravating, and therefore stop barking. Since the sound goes off whenever your dog barks, it is a continuous reminder and training aid to keep your dog from barking. While your dog may still bark a few times to alert, she is unlikely to bark continuously.

Choose between three levels to control your dog or your neighbor’s dog. The device can detect a dog barking up to 50 feet away with an internal microphone. This is an effective way to control barking outdoors for most dogs. Some dogs will ignore the sound, and dogs that are deaf or hard-of-hearing may not be affected at all.

This Sonic Dog Barking Control Device has a charming shape that looks like a little birdhouse. It will look discreet and not draw attention to itself hanging in your yard and is durable and weatherproof.

Our Take

This device was very effective for some of our dogs who bark inappropriately or excessively. Most of our dogs had a clear reaction to the sound and stopped barking. We love that we were able to achieve this without hurting or scaring our dogs. While we would rather be able to control barking using only positive reinforcement techniques, we appreciate that this isn’t always possible or effective, especially if we can’t be home when the barking is occurring or it isn’t our dog who is barking.

Some of our dogs ignored this device completely and it, of course, was not effective for deaf dogs. We were careful not to use this with any of our dogs who are experiencing dementia from old age or who have severe anxiety, as it may only increase their symptoms.

We like that while this device deterred dogs from barking repetitively, it didn’t keep dogs from barking entirely. This means that our dogs were still able to alert us to potential dangers and serve as a deterrent to criminals without aggravating the entire neighborhood with continuous barking. We thought the birdhouse shape was adorable and found it very durable in all kinds of weather out in our yards.

Mini Ultrasonic Bark Control Device By KCSC:

Here is an affordable device to control barking indoors or out without harming or scaring your dog. The sensitive microphone picks up barking up to 50 feet away. Choose between three levels in order to choose the appropriate sound for indoors or outdoors use.

The discreet box is durable and waterproof. It can be hung anywhere that you want to control barking. This is a great device to hang on a tree or fence post to stop barking in your yard, your neighbor’s yard, or in the street or alley. You can feel confident using it since it is safe to use around pets and people.

KCSC understands that ultrasonic sound is not an effective deterrent for all dogs, including dogs with hearing impairment, deaf dogs, and very determined barkers. This is why they include a satisfaction guarantee with every purchase of their bark control device. If your dog does not respond to the bark control device within a two-week period, contact the company for a full refund.

Our Take

We found this convenient little box to be a great way to deter barking for many of our dogs and our neighbor’s dogs as well. We loved that the box is versatile enough to be used indoors or out. At this price, we could even put a couple around our property or inside and outside to control barking everywhere. We did find that the battery tended to run out pretty quickly. For those of us who were really looking for some relief from barking dogs, this was a small price to pay.

We love that the company provides a money back guarantee to give us a chance to see if this works with our dogs. We would prefer that the money back period was longer than two weeks since some of our dogs became desensitized to the device after some time and wouldn’t respond to it again despite our best efforts.