According to the American Pet Products Association, Americans will spend an estimated $75.38 BILLION on their pets this year. That covers food, medicine, vet care, live animal purchases, and other services. It’s a good thing we don’t need to send our pets to college and incur those kinds of academic costs.
Oh wait, we stand corrected.
It really shouldn’t come as a surprise that we’re spending so much on our pets. In fact, we suspect the astronomical figure shared above doesn’t take into account the damage a pet can inflict on your home. The goods news is there are some measures you can take to make your home pet-friendly. Let’s take a look at a few:
Protect Your Home and Belongings from Pets
Dogs, especially puppies, can be pretty damaging to furniture, wood floors, and household belongings.
Crate training is ideal for over-active dogs, especially when company is coming over. Crate training can also be used for housebreaking puppies, because dogs instinctively won’t soil their protective den in their crates. So, taking them straight from crate to outdoors to do their business is a good learning experience.
Of course, keeping certain items away from your dogs is common sense. But what about wood-legged furniture – a certain chewing treat many dogs can’t resist. According to the Humane Society, giving your dog toys to occupy them can help, especially when you help them clearly understand which objects are toys that are okay to play with and which are other household objects to be avoided. You want to keep yourself especially involved in your puppy’s early life, so they won’t get bored and start chewing things you’d rather they didn’t. Bitter Apple spray is another option to make wood and other things unsavory for your pet to chew.
And about that furniture? Here’s an article with 10 simple ways to protect your furniture from dogs.
ScoopFree
Like the smell of a fresh home? Who doesn’t?
Now a show of hands how many like the smell of a cat litter box. Anybody? Anybody? Didn’t think so.
One of the perks for having an indoor cat is that you don’t have to drop everything to take your pet for a walk 2-3 times a day to do their business. But litter boxes can be kind of a drag to deal with, too.
ScoopFree was designed to take virtually all the work out of dealing with your cat’s litter box.
How it works is that you place a disposable litter tray under a self-cleaning mechanism. The litter contains silica crystals that absorb liquid to mitigate odors. An automatic rake system sweeps all the waste into a hidden compartment.
After a few weeks just seal up and dispose the litter tray, Then replace it with a new litter tray. You never have to touch the litter. Isn’t that refreshing?
CleverPet
Got an over-excited dog greeting you when you get home? It’s probably due to the lack of interaction and exercise while you’re away. CleverPet to the rescue:
The CleverPet promise is to reduce the loneliness and anxiety caused by a dog’s daily isolation. Apparently, watching Judge Judy on a daily basis can only take you so far.
CleverPet features a hub where your dog solves puzzles through touchpads, lights, and sounds – providing Fifi or Fido with daily mental and physical stimulation to make for a happier, well-rounded pooch.
And what would a tech product like CleverPet be without an accompanying app, where you can control your dog’s food intake, monitor developmental progress, change games, and schedule playtime right from your phone.
There’s no word on whether the app can walk your dog for you. Perhaps in the next version.
GoDogGo Fetch Machine
Speaking of dog exercise, do you have a dog who is a fetching enthusiast who can never seem to run down and retrieve enough balls for you? Then perhaps you should consider the GoDogGo Fetch Machine.
We all know how new parents like to run their small children ragged to make sure they’re plenty tired come bedtime. GoDoGo Fetch Machines seems like the same concept, only for dogs.
Basically, your GoDogGo Fetch Machine shoots balls for your dog to fetch. Not great from a bonding standpoint, but perhaps you can play fetch the old-fashioned way until you get tired. Then when your tireless pup keeps begging for more, switch over to the GoDogGo Fetch Machine to finish the job.
You can use it indoors or out, setting the rate of retrieval to 4, 7 or 15 second launch timings at low, medium or high distance. And what technical marvel of any kind would be complete without a remote control? The machine launches the balls at a safe arc, so your dog won’t get pelted directly by a launched ball. It also runs with adapter or battery power, depending on where you choose to engage in a game of high-tech fetch.
An active dog is a happy dog. And a better adjusted dog to have around the house.
SureFeed Pet Feeder
Here’s one for dogs and cats. Have multiple pets in your home that take to stealing each others’ food? SureFeed Pet Feeder is a bit space-age to look at. But it’s designed to bring order to your home when it’s feeding time for your pets.
Let’s say you have a dog that enjoys eating your cat’s food as well. Now imagine having a gated food bowl that only your cat can access. That’s how SureFeed Pet Feeder works.
When your pet sticks his head through the archway, the system recognizes the pet’s microchip (or an RFID reader on its collar) to open the unit to allow the pet to get to the food. The hard part can be getting your pet used to this. So, the lid is designed to be set to different levels of openness as the pet becomes used to its opening and closing.
You can register up to 32 pets on the system. Which if you have that many pets, we’d hate to see your litter box. But seriously, if you have multiple pets, you may want to have an additional SureFeed Pet Feeder so all your pets only have access to the food they’re supposed to.
The handful of thoughts listed above are just a few ideas to having well-adjusted pets – for a happier, pet-friendly home life for you and your family.