While 2020 was an atrocious year for most, there is one sect of the population that really enjoyed everyone working from home: our pets.
So you can imagine how much of a shock to their system it was when everyone started going back into the office. And you better believe some pets experienced a great deal of separation anxiety when their humans started going back into work.
Well, a team of researchers at the University of Glasgow came up with an ingenious way to help our pets deal with separation anxiety: Give them a phone.
Dr. Hirskyj-Douglas, a specialist in animal-computer interaction at the university’s School of Computing Science, came up with the concept of putting a sensor in one of her dog Zack's toys. Whenever the toy is shaken, it calls the user's phone with a video call, so the pup can see their human!
Dr. Douglas told Digit, "There are hundreds of internet-connected ‘smart toys’ on the market that dog owners can buy for their pets. However, the vast majority of them are built with the needs of dog owners in mind, allowing them to observe or interact with their pets while away from home. Very few of them seem to consider what dogs themselves might want, or how technology might benefit them as living beings with thoughts and feelings of their own."
The device does need some work, though. Several times, Zack fell asleep with the toy and rolled over on top of it, which triggered the phone dialing Dr. Douglas. So basically, he was butt dialing her. Or pup dialing.