Hello PitPat Pack! We have been so busy recently at PitPat HQ we’ve hardly had a moment to stop and sniff the spring flowers ourselves… On the pawsome side, we’ve been racking up a whole lot of activity. Here is where we have been on our walkies the past few weeks…

We went to Crufts at Birmingham NEC, and it was intensely busy; full to the brim with pooches and proud owners, as well as a delightful array of pet paraphernalia and plenty of worthy causes to discover and support.

After doing a little dog showing of our own…

…we rubbed noses with ChuckIt UK and their amazing selection of fantastic pooch friendly toys and games. The stand was so colourful and cheerful it made us want to go play fetch too. We also really enjoyed giving away a free ChuckIt with every PitPat as we love that they have the same aims as us, to keep dogs healthy and happy! Then it was waggy tails all round as we welcomed the canine coterie of Crufts. We saw the PitPat on huge dogs…

and teeny dogs…

…and all the breeds in between. It was delightful to meet so many furry PitPat Packers at our stand and chat to their humans about all of the fun activity logging they’d enjoyed since buying their PitPats.

We saw quite a few famous furry faces too!

Hazel and Bramble the performing pooches were showing off their skills and PitPats and won some rosettes in their competitions as well as stacking up a lot of activity that day!

We met our first canine journalist and not just any journalist, this guy was the Editor in chief of the Barking Bugle, Josef Teckel!

Among our favourite stands apart from ours, were the doggy masseuses. It was too adorable watching the dedicated care from both the owners and the friendly masseuse who explained the stages of the treatment to me when I stopped by to watch. I was admittedly a teeny bit jealous, but we hadn’t been running around busily or standing smartly for hours (oh wait, yes we had!)

We kitted out a human with a PitPat over on the Lintbells stand. Here he is looking rather fetching…

Lintbells are specialists at supplements for improving health and wellbeing for dogs. They had a wide range for all ages of pooches including joint care supplements. It was lovely to meet such a nice pack who are conducting scientific research to help all dogs to achieve their optimum health and fitness.  We are proud to say that their Pack goals and ours are the same.

We were also head over paws to meet Nando Brown when he stopped by our stand. He is an incredible dog trainer and his videos with pooch Fizz are a joy to watch! He picked up a PitPat for Fizz and they have been happily posting her pawsome activity screen shots ever since. Epic activity levels here, especially on agility training days. Woof!

In amongst all of that inspiring dog centred care we saw several amazing charities that blew our paws off with their pawfect loveliness.

We met a gorgeous pooch at the Hearing Dogs charity stand and a nice human told us about the work that the canine keepers do for their deaf clients. Their intelligent pups have literally saved the lives of their deaf recipients many times. Nearby we wandered past another stand for the charity Support Dogs that was incredibly moving. Some of these clever pooches work with humans with autism to help them with communication and socialisation and also reduce anxiety and help to calm and prevent outbursts. What really amazed us was the dogs who are trained to detect when their human is about to have an epileptic fit and can alert the human themselves so that they can get to a safe space. These intelligent dogs can even fetch blankets to keep them warm. The other noteworthy stand we saw was for Dogs for Good, a charity that works with children and families as well as individuals with an array of challenging conditions and disabilities. The assistance these dogs provide is life transforming for all involved, allowing greater levels of independence, confidence and lessening self consciousness as well as bringing a playful fun element to day to day lives. The whole experience helped us realise all over again what a great deal dogs do for us humans and how important it is for us to use every ounce of our best technology and scientific advancements to give back a bit to these furry best friends who are so selfless and loyal. As they said, dogs are good for us, and we at PitPat aim to be really good for dogs!

Our next pupdate will be a dog’s eye view on the Wearable Technology Show recently held in London’s Excel Centre. There were plenty of actual health and fitness wearables on show as well as a good amount of virtual reality for humans, and yet we were pulling in the crowds with our pawsome wearable technology for dogs!