How Is My Dog ?

Do you want really to learn about your dog and his life? How is my dog? Then digitize his daily activity with an activity tracking device. It will provide you valuable insights into your dog’s daily routines and habits. The activity monitor helps you to ensure him a happier and healthier life.

MY OWN EXPERIENCE WITH ACTIVITY MONITORS FOR PEOPLE

For years I am wearing Garmin HR Vivosmart smartwatch. This device helps me to:

• Track how many steps I make daily
• Number of stairs I go up each day
• My heart pace
• How many minutes of actual workout do I make per week
• How many calories do I consume each day

It has helped me over the years, to be aware of how many steps I do each day. My average is about 11.000 steps, with peaks of 40.000 when walking Saint James way in Spain, and a minimum of 6000 steps at some long working office day.

I bought one for my father and one for my mother. Also, my father-in-law has been wearing one since his birthday a couple of years ago. Smartwatches are great to make you aware of how much you exercise each day. For senior people, keeping the right exercise level grants them to feel better and be healthier over time.

Pintxo, my dog, has taken profit from it! He is walking with me in my spare time.

As a result that I am more active than before, Pintxo has seen increased his walking and exercise time. Also, this additional quality time with him had raised our bondage, getting eve closer.

ACTIVITY MONITOR FOR DOGS

In the last months of 2019, I realized that there were also “smartwatches” for dogs. Since exercise is also key for healthy and happy dogs, I decided to get one for Pintxo, my 7-year-old wire fox terrier. After some research, I decided to go for Fitbark 2.

I was interested to know:

• How much exercise is my dog doing on a daily basis
• Is Pintxo on average activity level when comparing to similar dogs (according to breed, age, and size)?
• How many calories is my dog burning each day?
• Is he sleeping OK? How many hours does he rest per day?
• What sort of walks are my daughters giving him?
• …

All these questions and other related ones can be answered thanks to an activity monitor device. These devices digitize the activity of our dog and deliver the information to your smartphone or email account. This information can be shared with all family members. It is amazing how engaging this is with my daughters. Pintxo is a lucky dog. My daughters love him as a smaller brother. So when they realize Pintxo is missing his activity goal by far, they take him for a fun walk!

This is fantastic for our four-legged pets! Can you imagine how much more exercise does a dog makes when wearing an activity monitoring device? This can account for xx additional hours per week

ACTIVITY MONITORS HELP TO IMPROVE YOUR DOG HEALTH CONDITION

Pets are totally dependent on their families. In our case, we are 5, my wife, 3 daughters and myself. This is good for our dog since normally someone is at home. However, when we talk about taking him for a walk or to the dog park, this is mostly done by me and my wife. It is fine, as long as we can do this. As already mentioned, this helps us to be more fit and bring a more healthy life. Not to say how much we do enjoy seeing our furry pooch playing and running around.

The issue comes when at long working days we arrive late at home. It is then the duty of my daughters to take our dog for a walk and exercise. The problem here is to know how long have they taken him for a walk. Did they play with him? did he exercise enough?

This is impossible to know unless your dog is using an activity monitoring device.

The activity monitor becomes the voice of the dog. Even if I am away all week, I can check how Pintxo is doing.

My experience with Pintxo is that if he makes around 12.000 Barkpoints per day he is happy and relaxed. A Barkpoint is a measure defined by Fitbark, the company which product we are using with Pintxo.

12.000 Barkpoints per day correspond on average to approximately 2 hours playtime, 8 hours being active and 14 hours resting. This is really good information, without having an activity monitor this was impossible to know.

Not only I know how Pintxo is doing, but also I can compare against similar dogs (size, age, breed). Fitbark is uploading all the information from thousands of dogs across the world. This is really good and worthy information. You get to know more about the habits and health conditions of our furry family members. This is key for their wellness, quality of life and prevent illnesses.

CALORIE CONSUMPTION

As additional valuable information, Fitbark delivers also an estimation of how many calories has your dog consumed each day. You can also see how much is being consumed each hour. This will vary a lot, depending on if your dog is playing, walking, hanging around the home or simply resting.

Knowing calorie consumption is key to adjust the food quantity your dog needs. As it happens with us, if they eat more calories than what they burn, they will create fat. If this is happening every other day, our dog will get overweight and lately become obese. Then he will enter in the perverse cycle (link). Being fatter will make him exercise less…So better keep calories under control.

In aside image, you can see Pintxo activity from 9 pm to 10 pm. We went for a night walk. Depending on the activity level, time is classified as play (walking and running off-leash), active (walking at home or with leash), resting. So overall Pintxo burnt 156 calories. In the sun clock, you can see the main walks from Pintxo that day (9 am, 5 pm and 9 pm. It looks like a good day!

IS IT WORTH GETTING ONE ACTIVITY MONITOR

The average dog toy spent per year is 70$US- This is about what an activity monitor cost. In my case, I picked Fitbark 2. It works great for us.

When acquiring an activity monitor device you are making a really great gift to you and your dog. Maybe he will not be never aware of the gift since he can not actively play with it. However, the paradox is that this small and light device will grant him a hundred if not thousands of additional exercise hours over the years.

HUNDREDS OR EVEN THOUSANDS OF ADDITIONAL EXERCISE HOURS FOR YOU AND YOUR DOG !!!

Happy to learn about your experience or thoughts about the benefits of activity monitor with your pets! Feel free to comment below.

For your dog and your health!

Cheers,

Jabu