Dear LPG,

The plight of all those pets that were bought especially to help the sanity of those going through lockdown has been estimated at 3.2 million, and a lot of those new owners chose dogs, but now it is all but over, and it has been reported that one in five of those pet owners are making arrangements to offload them. I also read that many of the dogs who started life in a lockdown home have never been ‘walkies’, or even as far as the park nearest their new homes, which saddens me a bit.

And now many of those home-alone dogs are learning about a different type of lockdown as their owners are finding places to go without them. But I read of a solution that is in development as we speak.

 A device has been created to allow dogs to video call their owners. The system dubbed DogPhone, works when a pet picks up and shakes a ball fitted with an accelerometer. When the accelerometer senses movement, it prompts a video call on a screen connected to the device.

The invention, to be the first of its kind, is the brainchild of University of Glasgow's Dr llyena Hirskyj-Douglas (specialist in animal-computer interaction) her 10-year-old Labrador, Zack, and colleagues from Aalto University in Finland.

The team behind the pet-friendly invention said that the DogPhone could help address the separation anxiety of pets who have grown used to having people at home during the coronavirus pandemic.

Doctor Hirskyj-Douglas says: There are hundreds of internet-connected 'smart toys' on the market that dog owners can buy their pets. 

The results of Zack’s interactions with a prototype DogPhone which is undergoing further experiments, are the focus of a new research paper at the Iss2021 ACM Interactive Surfaces and Spaces Conference in Lodz, Poland.

The device could be a breakthrough for 'pandemic puppies', dogs acquired during Covid-19 lockdown, and help address the separation anxiety of pets who have grown used to having people at home during the coronavirus pandemic.

Gloria Brown, Camberwell…

Gloria offers some information on the subject… 

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