Log my dog: Perceived impact of dog activity tracking

Anna Zamansky, Dirk van der Linden, Irit Hadar, Stephane Bleuer-Elsner

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

25 Citations (Scopus)
516 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The billion dollars’ worth pet industry is catching up on the wearables market, as pet activity and location trackers are increasingly worn by our furry friends. While there is a growing body of work on user perceptions of human wearables, very few works have thus far addressed canine activity trackers and their impact on pet owners’ lifestyles and the human-animal bond. In this paper we report on an empirical study investigating perceptions of 81 users of a popular dog activity tracker. The results show that dog activity trackers are perceived to have positive impact on owners' motivation to increase their mutual physical activities with their dogs. The human-dog bond is perceived to be further reinforced by the use of activity trackers, increasing human awareness to animals’ needs by giving them a “digital voice,” and potentially improving the quality of human caregiving.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)35-43
Number of pages9
JournalComputer
Volume52
Issue number9
Early online date23 Aug 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Sept 2019

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