Whistle, a wearable device for dogs that uses big data to help keep tracking dogs’ physical activity

Jun 15, 2013 07:19 PM EDT

Ben Jacobs, the Whistle co-founder and chief executive, when he was just 8 years old, a German shepherd named Bear - his first dog, passed away from intestinal issues at the age of 5. Although he has had several healthy dogs in the years since, including Kramer, another German shepherd, the experience of watching Bear suddenly get sick and die always stuck with him.

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"Your pet will seem healthy one day, and all of a sudden there will be a very rapid change in behavior, nothing obvious symptoms like whimpering and loss of appetite," said Jacobs. He then argued the problem is that the pet owners and vets haven't had access to enough data about their pets to be making judgment of their health situations.

So early in 2012, Ben Jacobs then have started to work on a solution to fill the "information gap" as what he has referred for tracking the health of the pets in last year. The Whistle is the result for the effort. It is a wearable device that snaps on to dog collars, and tracks their physical activity according to the dog's weight and age.

It costs $99 US dollar, the device comes with a collar attachment, charging dock and app.

Whistle is not the first wearable health device for dogs. Earlier in 2013, FitBark launched a kind of FibBit for dogs, which tracks the daily movements of your dog and make sure he or she has enough activity to stay healthy. The main distinction between Whistle and FitBank is Whistle's primary goal is to use the device for data collection, so pet owners and vets can use the data to improve preventative care for dogs.