The ‘Pet Tech’ Craze: Can a $799 Treadmill Make Your Best Friend Happier and Hea
ACCORDING TO her Twitter bio, Sharkboots “Boots" Shadynasty, nine years old, is “allergic to chicken and has behavioral issues." One of those issues is her propensity for peeing in beds. Her “mom," Leisha Riddel, 34, an art director in Toronto, says she tried everything to persuade the cat to relieve herself in the litter box instead: changing litter thrice daily, using a motion-activated spray (named “SSSCAT") meant to deter pets from certain areas of your home, even having three separate litter boxes so that Boots could rotate. The only thing that curbed Boots’s poor pee patterns? The Litter-Robot 4, a $699 spherical litter “box" that rotates slowly, sifting out the clean litter and dropping any clumps into an easily emptied drawer.
The Wi-Fi-enabled device not only cleans itself after each use—hence its promise to eliminate odors—it tracks when each of your cats have used it. You can even purchase a camera attachment to watch your cat do its business. Riddel bought her luxury litter box second hand, and insists that, while the price caused some pain, the box is worth it.
A kitty pee cam might seem like overkill, but I get it. I come from a long line of pet-obsessed suckers. In an oft-told story, my grandmother attempted to dissuade Puma, the family cat, from jumping on the kitchen counter by offering him pieces of whatever meat my grandfather, a butcher, brought home.
(You might understand that this only encouraged Puma). My aunt cooks full human meals for her beagles. My sister and brother-in-law let their Great Dane sleep beside them in an overpopulated queen-sized bed.
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