Your pet is (probably) bored. Technology may help.
At CleverPet we read with great interest Jessica Pierce’s article in the Sunday New York Times. It confirmed for us the reason why we started the company in the first place: though animals left alone and bored at home are often unhappy, science provides us with tools that can help.
For much of history, dogs and cats have been treated as if they didn’t have feelings. But until recently, they usually had the freedom to roam around the local village or farm. Today, our dogs and cats have neither the constant presence of humans, nor can they escape and do their own thing. We’ve arrived at a point in time where we care deeply enough about our pets that we keep them safe from predators, cars, and disease indoors, but then we don’t give them options for a meaningful life there.
We’re not claiming that technology can replace interaction with people or other animals, and that’s not the goal. But games and interaction can help, since the anxiety many animals feel when they’re left alone is amplified by the fact that they have nothing to do but worry.
As Jessica notes, “although we have an entire world outside our home, we are everything to our animals.” Absent constant interaction with the animals we keep, there are a few key elements that technology can offer, which we believe will go a long way toward helping. We’ve identified the important roles of challenge, variety, and agency, and with the CleverPet Hub we’re trying, in our small way, to provide all three.
Challenge: I’m defining challenge here as the combination of sustained and directed effort with eventual reward. For dogs, rewards can take many forms, from the discovery of a food treat to the successful removal of a pillow’s stuffing. Many dogs love tearing things apart, playing tug-of-war, and generally working hard. This is in part because trying and being challenged is intrinsically fun — this is why people like games, and why dog products like Kong and Nina Ottoson’s puzzle toys are so popular. Dog trainers agree that when dogs spend their mental energy on working to get their food, they’re less likely to invent jobs for themselves. With the CleverPet Hub, pets are challenged to get their food every day.
Variety: Variety makes each day unique. For humans this is accepted as a truism, but we have little reason this doesn’t apply equally for other animals. By providing new experiences and always-changing challenges, a pet’s life (both physical and mental) is enriched as they develop new memories and skills. We’ve designed the Hub so that it adapts the puzzles it presents in order to keep them interesting.
Agency: The control an animal feels it has over the world contributes to its sense of agency. Homes are designed by people, for people, and filled with people’s things. Virtually everything in the home is off-limits for a pet — it’s not really their space, and they’re constantly reminded of this while being subjected to the whims of their human. We believe there’s real value to giving animals something over which they can exert control, something in the world that changes predictably based on what the animal does. With more agency, an animal feels less helpless, improving their overall sense of well-being. We believe that it’s the dog’s sense of agency that leads them to often ignore their food bowl in lieu of getting the exact same food from their Hub.
So, is your pet lonely and bored? Probably. But by challenging them, providing them with variety, and giving them a greater sense of agency, we think technology can help. It certainly won’t resolve every ethical question when it comes to keeping pets, but at least it’s a start.
