Busy adults with very important things to do don't have to worry about walking Fido anymore. Trottr is a service that allows users to find professional dog walkers in their neighborhood.
Trottr walkers are vetted, trained, certified, bonded, and insured, and Trottr can set up a meet and greet so that you can be confident about your choice. The app allows you to see when your walker is available and schedule 15, 30, 45 and 60 minute walks. If a user needs to get in touch with the walker, the chat function lets you to communicate 24/7. Users can even use GPS to track their dog's walk. When your dog is exercised and happily returned home users can pay their walker directly through the app.
iPhone App - Designed for iPhone, compatible with iPad
Many of us live in increasingly busy times that mean we don't always have as much free time as we'd like, especially when it comes to finding that spare hour in the day to exercise. Dog owners also need to find the time to take care of their beloved pooch and ensure they're well cared for and well trained. Why am I reminding you of all these responsibilities? Because, fortunately, there's an app that combines the two!
It's called Thank Dog! and it comes from the people behind Thank Dog! Bootcamp, an exercise bootcamp that also ensures your dog is well trained.
The bootcamp routine is the brainchild of Jill and Jamie Bowers. Jill Bowers explained it better than us when we asked her how it all came about: "I’ve been a dog trainer for 11 years and during that time, I became 40 pounds overweight. I have a Doberman who loves to exercise and when I decided to finally lose the weight, I joined a bootcamp. I got so into the bootcamp style workout, got trained for a fitness dvd due to my success story of losing 40 pounds. My poor pup didn’t get the exercise she needed (she got a little hefty after a while too, ha!) because my dedication to my own fitness regime made me too tired. So, long story short, I needed to change that and created the nation’s first obedience and fitness bootcamp for dogs and owners."
The bootcamp has been a great success with Jill taking personal training certification and working with a bootcamp instructor to ensure the class was perfect for both dog and owner alike. As Jill knows, "dogs learn faster with repetition and consistency" as well as while having fun so classes were "made up of 10 min intervals and it’s a total of 30 minutes of cardio and 30 min of strength training". Jill's own dog, Quinn, is now "the most exercised dog on the planet", thanks to this, as you can see from the photo.
The next logical step after setting up the bootcamp was to create an app in the form of Thank Dog! Mobile.
Currently available for free, with additional content unlockable for $2.99, the app combines cardio training, strength training and the all important dog training. It's all exactly how things would be if you attended the Thank Dog! urban bootcamp.
Users are taught through 20 1 hour routines to exercise at the same time as training their dog important obedience commands, while still having fun, of course. A resistance band is required alongside the app but that's all that's needed to get fitter. Exercises include things such as doing shoulder presses while commanding your dog to stay or jogging while ensuring your lovably mutt is staying near your heel.
It all sounds like a fantastic idea to me and Dog Whisperer himself Cesar Milan has also backed the program. Why not give it a go for yourself? Let us know how you - and your doggie - get on!
There's something heart warming about the companionship between two dogs, even if those dogs happen to be attached by the tongue such as Mick & Ralph in Mojo Bones' first iOS title: Tongue Tied.
Arriving in early December, Tongue Tied follows the exploits of Mick & Ralph as they traverse their way through 50 levels, hoping to eventually retrieve the WonderBone. As the names and concept suggests, it's going to be a pretty zany ride with an entertaining combination of platforming and physics puzzling.
It promises to include numerous tricks and bonuses to keep things interesting as well as a form of levelling up system, leading to many unlockables. Besides the 50 story levels, there's also the promise of 30 separate DogHouse levels boosting the replayability of the title.
With a graphical style that clearly takes a few ideas from classic cartoons, I reckon Tongue Tied will be ideal for young and old alike.
Tongue Tied will be out next month. For now, gaze at the gameplay trailer and screenshots below.
Touch Pets Dogs is a freemium pet sim that boasts a surprising amount of depth. It's not meant to played constantly, and the need for an internet connection is annoying, but ngmoco has still created a solid game that should delight puppy-lovers...now if o
ngmoco:)'s hotly anticipated titles, Touch Pets: Dogs and Eliminate, have finally made their way past Apple's approval process. For those who don't know, Touch Pets is a pet sim that focuses on raising and training "the ultimate puppy" and also includes a wide array of social features. Eliminate, meanwhile, is a multiplayer online first person shooter. Both games will be free (yes, you read that right!) but will feature In-App Purchases. Note that IAP's won't be necessary to play the game; you'll just need them to unlock extras. With Eliminate, for example, you get to play a certain number of games per day before your "energy" runs out; you can play without energy but you won't be able to earn any in-game credits.
While both apps are approved, don't get too excited: ngmoco is doing a Canada-only release first, to make sure that "all Eliminate systems are online and all puppies are house broken before unleashing upon the world," according to their tweet. It's an interesting strategy that will have non-Canadian fans grumbling, but given that ngmoco is releasing two extremely hyped games with heavy online components at once, it makes sense. Once the games make their USA debut, we'll post our reviews; for now, you can check out our preview coverage from earlier this month.
Update: Eliminate is now out worldwide.Make sure you grab it! It generally takes a few hours for new apps to show up in the App Store, so don't worry if you can't see it yet.
Canadians can get Touch Pets here, though the rest of the world is still waiting.
