Pops and I have been testing out the Animo, a new dog activity monitor from Sure Petcare that tracks your dogs exercise and behaviour.
Now, Pops is no spring chicken, but one thing’s for sure she doesn’t lack energy and enthusiasm for life. Equally she loves her snoozing time [not unlike her Mum!] So when we were approached by Sure Petcare to see if we would like to put their new dog activity monitor through it’s paces, we couldn’t wait to try it out!
The Animo arrives packed in a neat little box, complete with all the instructions you need to get started. You simply insert the battery (which is provided), attach the device to your dog’s collar, using one of the three silicon bands, download the app and away you go!
The Animo is primarily designed to provide a greater understanding of your dogs health and well being. It’s intended to be worn twenty four hours a day to track their behaviour patterns and alert you to abnormalities in their routine.
The App
The app is super easy to install on your mobile phone and very user friendly, giving you step by step instructions on how to set up your pets profile. After you have input your dogs details – their name, age and breed etc, the Animo will start to ‘learn’ your dogs behaviour over a seven day period. After this time, it knows what is ‘normal’ for your dog and you can start to set daily goals using the app.
You can even add additional account users, so you can share access to the app with friends and family for convenience.
So what does the Animo Dog Activity Monitor actually track?
Activity
The Animo calculates the total time in hours and minutes that your dog is active everyday, so you can ensure they are getting a regular amount of exercise. You can set a daily goal via the app to make sure that their exercise regime is consistent, and in doing so the app will alert you when you have reached your target for the day.
Any activity is measured, albeit walking, running or any other form of movement, so all the data goes towards calculating the amount of calories that are burnt in a day. [I’m fairly sure a lot of Poppy’s calories are burnt when the post lady arrives and she goes tearing towards the front door!] The activity is colour coded in a graph, so it’s easy to interpret as you can see below.
The device is waterproof, so there’s no need to remove it in heavy rain, or if your pup fancies a dip in the river.
Calories
The Animo uses an industry standard calculation to calculate how many calories your dog burns in a day. The calories burnt are tracked against each movement type and the Animo even provides you with guidance on how many calories they should be burning based on their age, weight and neutered status. Believe it or not, even when they are sleeping they are still busy burning calories. [Makes me feel a little better about being such a sleep fanatic!]
Much like with activity, you can set goals for the day and the app will alert you when you have reached your daily target.
Sleep
SleepA good nights sleep goes a long way, not just for us, but for our dogs too. I really notice a change in Poppy if she’s tired – she most definitely grumbles a lot more and is less tolerant of people! [Rather like myself!]
A sustained pattern of poor sleep can be indicative of health problems, and once the Animo has learned what is ‘usual’ for your dog, it will alert you if it notices a significant change.
It provides a sleep score every night and the graph shows you the varying levels of sleep; from awake, to restless, normal and deep sleep. Often you can explain why they may have had a restless spell in the night, for instance Pops always stirs if I get up for any reason.
Over a period of time you get to know how much deep sleep is normal for your dog and whether certain factors affect their sleep quality. Much like us humans, some dogs need more sleep than others to function, and the beauty with the Animo is that it not only learns their behaviour pattern and routine, but it also adjusts its expectations throughout your dogs life span.
Behaviour
It can sometimes be really difficult to spot changes in your dogs behaviour, particularly if you’re with them most of the time, like I am with Pops. Even really subtle differences can indicate a potential health issue with your dog.
From the minute the Animo is attached to your dogs collar it will start to collect information about their behaviour habits such as barking, scratching and shaking.
It alerts you to any abnormalities and displays their behaviour on a graph which you can view by day, week or month, enabling you to spot any trends.
Stylish and Discreet
What I really like about the Animo, is that unlike other tracking and monitoring devices I’ve seen, this is very discreet and sits neatly on your dog’s collar. There’s no weight to it whatsoever, so it’s comfortable to wear too. If you want to change your dog’s ‘outfit’ [so to speak] and pop a different collar on, then you simply change the band size, if needs to be, to suit.
Equally, there is no need to charge the device and the battery lasts for up to six months, so it’s very low maintenance.
The Animo costs just £59.99, but they’re kindly offering Dotty customers a discount, meaning you save 10% with code DOTTY10.
I have to say, I’m really impressed with our Animo. It’s not really made me change any habits or routines, but it’s reassuring to know that Pops is getting the right amount of exercise, that her sleep quality is excellent and that I can monitor any changes in her behaviour accurately.
If you’d like to keep an eye on your dogs health and well being, I can highly recommend this nifty little gadget.
A huge thank you to Sure Petcare for gifting us one to review.
Woofs and Wags
Kate and Pops
xox
