Mike Hemstreet is the founder of pet tech news website MyDogIsARobot. Mike made his website when he first became a pet parent and realized that he couldn't find a consolidated source of information about insurance. So naturally he took matters into his own hands and started aggregating all the latest info about the pet industry.
Join Lorien and Mike as they discuss the possibilities of where the pet tech industry is heading, from cloning to talking dogs, this is an episode you won't want to miss out on!
Thanks for listening! Check out our sponsor, PetHub for more great pet parent resources.
Have an idea for a PetLoverGeek episode or have something else you want to share? Drop us a note to pawnews@pethub.com.
Mike Hemstreet is the founder of pet tech news website MyDogIsARobot. Mike made his website when he first became a pet parent and realized that he couldn't find a consolidated source of information about insurance. So naturally he took matters into his own hands and started aggregating all the latest info about the pet industry.
Join Lorien and Mike as they discuss the possibilities of where the pet tech industry is heading, from cloning to talking dogs, this is an episode you won't want to miss out on!
Thanks for listening! Check out our sponsor, PetHub for more great pet parent resources.
Have an idea for a PetLoverGeek episode or have something else you want to share? Drop us a note to pawnews@pethub.com.
00:00 Music
00:02 Lorien Clemens
Hey pet lovers. Welcome to Pet Lover Geek powered by PetHub. I'm Lorien Clemens and today Wohoo! I'm super excited, we are digging into pet tech--we're going totally geek out today, and it's a space as you-many of you long time listeners i'm sure already know. I'm pretty familiar with because PetHub, the company that I helped start, is actually in that pet technology space. So today, our guest is somebody who is right there always watching pet technology, writing about it, digging deep into it, and he and I are going to geek out. Yes, I am talking about the founder of My Dog Is A Robot, Mike Hemstreet. He has a wonderful blog that accumulates all the latest, greatest news, unpack technology and how it's working in and out of the industry. So I'm so excited to get to chat with Mike today, we're going to talk about some of the really exciting innovations that are out there in the pet space. Some things that we might see in the future. We're also just going to geek out a little bit and have some fun just... dreaming about what we wish was coming soon. So I know you want to hear more. Stick around and there will be a really quick break and then we're going to dig on in with Mike Hemstreet from My Dog Is A Robot.
01:14 Music
01:31 Lorien Clemens
Okay well, welcome to Pet Lover Geek Mike. I'm super excited to have you here and I'm ready to really geek out today. But before we do start that geeking out, I want everyone to kind of understand who you are, how you got started in the pet industry and what's the whole history behind your website? My Dog Is A Robot.
01:50 Michael Hemstreet
Sure, so my name is Michael Hemstreet. I run MyDogIsARobot.com. So I got started in the pet industry about 15 years ago. When we got a Golden Retriever puppy and a friend said, ah-oh, Golden retriever, you better get pet insurance and I was like pet insurance? Never heard of pet insurance before, so I, of course went online, Googled up pet insurance to try to do a little research on this, and I found individual pet insurance websites. You know, the VPI's and the pet plans, but there was no kind of--there's no comparison site or aggregator type site, that made it easy for you know a pet parent to kind of research this topic, so, figured somebody should create a comparison site. Might as well be me.
02:41 Lorien Clemens
Mhm.
02:42 Michael Hemstreet
So, I created a website called Pet Insurance Review, and at that point this is like I said this is about 15 years ago--pet insurance was just starting to take off, a lot of new pet insurance companies were coming onboard, is getting a lot of media attention, and so the site kind of took off. Got popular and I ran that for about 10 years and then three years ago I sold the site to an agency in London. Pet insurance is very popular in Europe and this agency represented a lot of European pet insurance companies, Petplan and Agria and such.
03:15 Lorien Clemens
Mhm.
03:16 Michael Hemstreet
So I sold to them and then, you know once you're in the pet space, it's kind of hard to get out of it. 'cause it's kinda fun to be in, right? So I was looking for something new to do so I just started. I'm a tech geek too so I was paying attention to the new pet cameras and pet trackers and this kind of thing, and so I just decided to create a website to kind of gather information on all these new products.
03:41 Lorien Clemens
Yeah I love it, and it's funny, my dog is a robot actually started around the same time that I started doing the Pet Lover geek stuff, and we came at it from totally different angles, so for me I mean in my day-to-day work with PetHub I do get introduced to a lot of new companies and new technologies and things like that--folks that want to work with us or whatever. But the other thing that I kept seeing, particularly when I would go to trade shows or things like that was... this abundance of marketing that like, you know, had the buzz wordy technology--science backed all these kind of things and I'd be like, Oh My God that is just such a. I'm not going to use a bad word here, but you know what I mean? It's just a load of hot-hooey,
04:17 Michael Hemstreet
Yeah.
04:18 Lorien Clemens
And when you actually dig down into it, it was very surface--like what they were actually doing that was technology, and when we started PetHub 11 years ago now there was very little actual tech going on in the industry aside from you know like there were some new GPS trackers that were these big honking things on collars and things like that, and there were of course the radio based collars that would, you know, give a little zap when a dog would try to get out of the yard or that kind of thing, but there wasn't a lot of technology. Now, of course there's a ton, as you well know, and so but with Pet Lover Geek, my thing was really to just kind of geek out about things and kind of call BS. Maybe. on some of the stuff that was out there. Like people claiming that you know microchips had GPS was one of the ones that I got really on a soapbox about that kind of thing. So I'm excited to get to chat with you today about things 'cause I have a lot of the topics that I know you talk about on your website that I just want to geek out with you today. So we're going to start with one that. I know is very controversial, but it's one that I think is super cool to talk about and I don't really know how I feel about it, but that's cloning, so this idea that I could clone a beloved pet that like has just been the quote- unquote perfect dog and then continue to have that pet that would have the same DNA year after year. It's something that's out there, and people are doing it now, and there's definitely this draw in my heart because we've had some pretty darn perfect pets in our life. But then there's also like this part of me that's like ew! That's kind of like gross, and the other thing too, is you know, let's not even go into all the sci-fi movies that I've seen were cloning goes horrifically wrong. But is it really ethical? And let's just chat about that. Cloning, what do you think about it and what do you see the future?
06:00 Michael Hemstreet
Sure, yeah, it's a tough one. Yeah, I've got like the same thoughts that you do. Is you know, it's a tough aspect too because, how do you justify cloning a dog when there's plenty of dogs in need that are being put down, and that kind of thing too, right? So it's tough. There's only a couple of companies really in the world that do this, there's ViaGen, you know their the biggest U.S. company, and then there's a couple in North Korea or South Korea, and I think there's one in China, and so what, you know, their attitude I think is people should be able to do whatever they want. You know with their pet if they have a beloved pet, but then they also, what they've been saying lately is, well we're cloning kind of special animals, that they've cloned some horse species that were extinct, for 50 years. They found some of the DNA, so they brought that back, a miniature horse.
06:55 Lorien Clemens
Mhm.
06:56 Michael Hemstreet
They've done that. What they say they're going to do now with these dogs that are kind of specially trained and they can sniff out cancer and these kind of things. So there's actually a real benefit for cloning these type of dogs. It's not just because somebody misses Fido, right?
07:11 Lorien Clemens
Right.Yeah, so part of me is like oh yeah, extinct species, that's a good idea. Has anybody seen Jurassic Park? Yeah, and I think this is such an emotional part of this. You mentioned the you know the fact that there's tons of rescue dogs out there that are in need of homes and that is the same type of controversy that then you have with like breeders, and things like that, there's no shortage of controversy there, and there's a lot of genetic stuff that's going on within the breeding community already, but I think the interesting thing to me like, when, cause I interviewed ViaGen about a year and a half ago, two years ago, the dog or cat, if you're doing cat that you're getting from this might be the exact same DNA. But it's not going to be the exact same dog, because all of those factors that were there, including the mother that the dog came from, is not the same mother. I mean, it's literally like a surrogate... dog that they're using to carry these puppies and you might have multiple puppies in the same litter that have the exact same DNA, which is also kind of creepy, and you know this whole nurture versus nature thing, and I'm a strong believer that it's an equal mix in the pet that you end up with so, and let's not even get started with the whole surrogacy, like you're--the dog that you're using to carry these and or... whoever cat or pig or whatever kind of thing that you're using. It's not like they get a choice. Unlike surrogacy in the human world, so I'd love it if you could chat a little bit about things like that and maybe advancements to that can kind of take away that artificial wombs and stuff like that.
08:50 Michael Hemstreet
That's one of the big knocks on it, is you're forcing these surrogate mothers into breeding machines, basically, and they have no say in the matter, so that's a tough one, you know, I haven't really seen any of the the cloning companies respond to that, but then you're also right that they have the same DNA, but it is not the exact same dog, right? It's got usually what they say is, it looks pretty dang similar, but the personality can be different, because it's raised differently. So again, it's nature versus nurture. It's not going through the same life experiences, that kind of thing. So everything I've read. Is that the folks that do this are all pretty happy with their cloned pet.
09:33 Lorien Clemens
Mhm.
09:35 Michael Hemstreet
You know, the famous one being Barbra Streisand, she cloned a couple of her...
09:39 Lorien Clemens
Frenchie's. I think they were Frenchie's. Yeah.
09:42 Michael Hemstreet
Frenchie's, something like that. She was happy with it and some other folks are as well, but they do acknowledge it's not the exact same dog that they miss.
09:52 Lorien Clemens
Yeah.
09:53 Michael Hemstreet
But it's close.
09:53 Lorien Clemens
Yeah. Yeah I mean it's just it's hard 'cause my husband and I actually talked about this at the time when I did the interview and we had a dog at the time who's no longer with us who was just practically perfect in every way, but he had a really super rough start in life and obviously we would never hope that on any pup, and we have to think that like some of his greatness came from overcoming some of those issues and learning to cope with those. So yeah anyway it's something that I love that we're talking about it and that the technology is there for the obvious reasons as far as like we could potentially save a lot of lives with genetic technology, we could potentially, like you said, the dogs that have that DNA, you know the genes that are allowing them to smell out cancer and things like that, I mean that's exciting stuff, but at the end of the day I think it just gives me that queasy feeling because of the surrogacy and all of that... it's not quite what I... It's not where I need it to be for me to feel like it's really, truly ethical to pursue, so I don't know.
10:51 Michael Hemstreet
And I'm kind of surprised that the government hasn't got involved in this really, right. They haven't banned it, I know they asked the American Veterinary Association for an opinion on it several years back, and they kind of, they didn't really know how to respond. They thought, well, let's not regulate this yet, let's just take a wait and see approach to see what happens. But so far the government's been kind of hands off on this.
11:11 Lorien Clemens
Yeah, doesn't it seem like it's just one step away from humans? I mean like.
11:15 Michael Hemstreet
Yeah.
11:17 Lorien Clemens
I mean
11:18 Michael Hemstreet
For sure.
11:18 Lorien Clemens
You know they're gonna do chimps if they haven't already, and then there's one step away from doing humans and then wow, all bets are off. Then you really get into some sci-fi stuff. Alright, let's switch gears a little bit and let's continue talking about, you know, getting a pet in your life, but not a living one. Let's talk about robots 'cause obviously we've seen robot dogs and cats and what have you, for long long time. I mean toys mostly kind of thing, but the whole robot industry seems to really start to take off and there have been some stuff just recently in the past few weeks of new technologies that are out there specifically to help people with you know dementia, loneliness, and other types of challenges that they may have in your life, and a lot of it's using AI as part of their base, so I'd love it if you could kind of talk about like what we're seeing right now in that robotics, and how it relates to bringing robot pets into our lives.
12:09 Michael Hemstreet
Yeah sure, so I kind of breakdown the robot pets into three different categories, right? There's the toy pets for kids that are fun, you know remote controlled. Those have been around for years and they always will be. No one has a problem with those, and then as you mentioned there's this kind of this new category of companion robots and they are for elderly folks who might have dementia or lonely. They're getting popular in Japan, where there's kind of a large elderly population that's alone, and they're getting really popular in retirement homes and these type of things in Japan and those use AI as well 'cause what they do is they are kind of program to kind of learn the behavior of their owner. The pet parent, and kind of react to them, smile and kind of respond to how the pet parent is reacting with them, and those are really interesting, and then the third category is this kind of commercial use, that is kind of new.
13:08 Lorien Clemens
Boston Dynamics has this new... looks like something--I don't know if you saw the Black Mirror episode with this robot, these robot dogs
13:16 Lorien Clemens
Yeah. No. creepy yes.
13:19 Michael Hemstreet
Yeah creepy, but there's a couple of companies now that make these for industrial purposes. There's some military use. Some police forces are buying some of these, you know, let's say there's a bomb threat or something they can send in these robot dogs into a bank or a building to kind of check things out before the police have to enter, and again these are sophisticated robots, you know, that are controlled by the military or some police officer with the control panel.
13:49 Lorien Clemens
Yeah, I think they're fascinating and if we look at it from the commercial standpoint right, you know you think about, well we've already got technology where literally fumes can be read by the chemical makeup of fumes and things like that and you can see like, well, gosh, if you could put that into a robot dog and then does it really replace the bomb sniffing dog, does it really replace the drug sniffing dog or whatever? But it does. It does lend for like a lot of possibilities. I think that they can do so much more, and you're not putting that life in danger. I think it's exciting.
14:21 Michael Hemstreet
Right? Yeah, no, it's neat stuff and it's... There's all sorts of possibilities for this going forward for the commercial use of the dogs.
14:29 Lorien Clemens
I'd love if you could talk a little bit more about what you've read out there, what you're seeing out there as far as that commercial use, and then where can we extrapolate like where is that going in the future for all the different potential ways that it can be used.
14:41 Michael Hemstreet
What I've been reading about lately is there's some more practical uses for some of these commercial robots in terms of... On the factory floor, you know kind of moving materials around, and I think was Amazon was going to start testing 'em out in one of the warehouses and but that's all brand new, so we'll have to wait and see how useful those are.
15:02 Lorien Clemens
Yeah and I wonder too like if there's a way that, and I'm sure that they're going to do this if they haven't already thought of it, but like combining like what they're doing right now with these companion robots and what they're doing with these more functional service robots as it were. So I'm thinking I have friends that use service animals and they'll have periods of time where they don't have a service animal that's ready for them, and they have to go through this long period of training them and getting them up to speed, and it doesn't always work out. They don't always match perfectly, and I just see like there's an opportunity there for maybe having some of that functionality that we see from service animals. It's obviously not going to be the deep companionship that you get with a service dog or a service source, but it just feels like there's some something there too that could be helpful.
15:45 Michael Hemstreet
Yeah, no that's a great idea, and you could combine that with the companionship type of robot dog.
15:51 Lorien Clemens
Yeah.
15:52 Michael Hemstreet
Combine the two so you get the service and companionship. Yeah, I haven't see anyone doing that or talking about that.
15:58 Lorien Clemens
Yeah, I have to think somebody has thought of it. Otherwise, I'm going to patent that... I'll be right back. Uh no, okay so let's keep on the kind of the talk about AI 'cause you and I were talking before we actually started recording and you know machine learning and how it really is like a marketing buzzword so many times, and when you dig down deep into some of these things you're like, Oh come on, that's like, it's not really true AI and you're just using that because you know that that's what sells right now and is sexy right now, but I would love it if you could kind of chat about the AI that really is happening in the pet industry or that is looking forward like where it's ripe to be used.
16:40 Michael Hemstreet
Yeah, yeah you're right I do think it is primarily a marketing tag line, and it's also used--I think a lot of startups like to use it and it helps them fundraise, right? Because they're going to get easier to get a check cut if you could say you're doing some kind of AI tech startup, right?
16:59 Lorien Clemens
Oh yeah, we see that actually all the time, when we were going through investment rounds, that's one of the first questions that we get like oh are you guys doing some kind of AI machine learning? Well, like, well, sure, but it's nothing different than what we've always done and you know what I mean it's not--you know what we think of when we think of robots that are like listening to you and learning to react to respond to you, and I mean it's not that same thing and like, true AI, I don't know that it actually is being done a lot. I do know that definitely some stuff in the veterinarian diagnostic space that is definitely using some pretty heavy duty algorithms that I would definitely classify as AI.
17:33 Michael Hemstreet
Yup.
17:34 Lorien Clemens
And learning like you know not only about the individual patient, but also just about diagnostics in general and helping to build on these things and stuff so--but in general I mean is there anybody really doing AI? In the pet industry right now?
17:48 Michael Hemstreet
Well, like you said, there are a couple of companies that they do the imaging--AI for imaging so the vets will, you know do some xrays or scan the pets and then they've got these machines that a human doesn't even have to look at the images, and these machines are learning to detect if illnesses or problems through the scans.
18:11 Lorien Clemens
Mhm.
18:12 Michael Hemstreet
Yeah the other ones I've seen that I would classify as real AI is there is a company called. I think they're called companion. It's a startup out of San Francisco and they're using AI to train dogs. They have these machines.
18:25 Lorien Clemens
Yeah, I was going to bring up them, 'cause they are the one that I was like--we actually met with them and they're really awesome.
18:31 Michael Hemstreet
yeah what they're doing is pretty cool and I mean that's a full on AI and then some of the other--I guess in the pet health space, you know there's some of these... I don't even know if this is really full on AI machine learning, but it's like they're kind of like smart assistance, right? So if you have.... If you have a sick dog and you can go online and describe symptoms in these kind of things and it's an algorithm that you're interfacing with at first right?
19:00 Lorien Clemens
Yeah.
19:01 Michael Hemstreet
And it tries to solve the problem, at least do the first level of triage.
19:04 Lorien Clemens
Yeah.
19:05 Michael Hemstreet
And it's--they're getting better and better and that's actually a carryover from human health care.
19:09Lorien Clemens
Right.
19:10 Michael Hemstreet
And some of these apps that do something similar.
19:13 Lorien Clemens
Well there's a lot of that too, I mean, just in the customer service space, like a lot of the customer service software--overlays that a lot of companies use. They're definitely using that type of learning whereas it's really--it is a complex algorithm, and the more questions it asks is trying to get you closer and closer to hopefully being able to help you without having to interface with the human. But you know a lot of that is, yeah, that's a machine learning I guess, but at the end of the day, it's really about really clever algorithms and when they get to the end of that algorithm, it's going to stop learning. It's not like it's going to keep building on itself like what we think of when we think of AI... Awesome. I would love it if you could chat a little bit about kind of like moving from AI into that Interconnectivity that we're also seeing 'cause some of the stuff that you were just mentioning too is a lot about you know using API layers and things like that for systems to interlock and chat with each other, and actually--you know this whole Internet of things right, and working and creating systems where different... platforms as it were are talking together to then build something greater. I would love it if you could talk about you know where that is in the pet industry 'cause we see it in certainly in the human space there's a ton of platforms that are talking to each other and interacting with each other all the time, but not so much in the pet space per say.
20:33 Michael Hemstreet
Yeah, I haven't seen a lot of interchange between different companies. You know, talking within the pet space, but you'll have things like smart feeders, right? So they are... it's kind of a gadget you put your dog food in--your cat food in, and it.. yeah you can kind of program it. It gives out the right portion at the right time. Couple times a day. And that's kind of how they started out. Now they're getting a little bit smarter so they can kind of see. OK, well you're running low on kibble, you're running low on cat food, and then now they can place an order automatically because they're connected to the Internet, they can place an order. Get the food delivered right to the house. You gotta put it in there. So yeah, there's one step the human has to get involved in. Which sucks I guess. So they're slowly starting to connect up, but I haven't seen two different pet companies kind of work together.
21:32 Lorien Clemens
Yeah.
21:33 Michael Hemstreet
You know, through an API or something like that. Yeah.
21:35 Lorien Clemens
Yeah, I mean that's from where we are with PetHub, that's where we see the true future. You know, where companies that have unique datasets and unique relationships with pet parents can work together and create an even greater service to those pet parents. By working together rather than being in these silos, and I think in my time here in the pet industry, there are a lot of silos.. of information and everybody seems to want to keep it all to themselves, and, you know I'm hoping that as we continue to grow and evolve, and technology in the pet space that we really start to realize it's a really big pie, and everybody's going to be able to have a piece or three and working together we can do so much more for pets and their pet parents, and so anyway I look forward to seeing more interoperability and connections that are made between companies. I think that's the next great space. I would love just to open up with you, like what is exciting you most right now in the pet industry and what's happening in the future of it.
22:42 Michael Hemstreet
Well let's see, what I've been paying attention to lately which I think is pretty cool is with a couple of things. So my definition of pet technology is a little bit broader--I get into the services and some of the food space too, and some of the newer things--there's a lot of these alternative protein pet foods being created. A lot of this insect based pet food. There's proteins that are grown, and you know on a petri dish and they're making you know dog food out of this stuff, and it's all you know it's great for the planets, all very sustainable. I mean they can grow, they have these vertical farms where they raise grubs and these larvae and stuff, and they can do it with hardly any water and it doesn't impact the environment at all. That stuff I think it's pretty neat and has a lot of potential.
23:37 Lorien Clemens
Yeah, we actually have one of those here locally called Beta Hatch.
23:41 Michael Hemstreet
Beta Hatch?
23:42 Lorien Clemens
Beta Hatch, and they took over a huge warehouse that I think--I'm going to get--if I get this wrong I'll be in trouble, but I think it was one of the old Apple processing places that was here in Wenatchee and then now they're sharing a space with, I want to say a Bitcoin
24:00 Michael Hemstreet
Of course!
24:01 Lorien Clemens
Place that is producing a ton of heat.
24:03 Michael Hemstreet
Oh yeah.
24:04 Lorien Clemens
Through all of their servers and so they're working together, which is also, I think like genius and exciting. And you mentioned too, the petri dish proteins, there's a company out there called Bond Pets
24:14 Michael Hemstreet
Yup.
24:14
That I was able to interview once. Awh it's fascinating. I mean this idea that we could get actual animal protein, but it's just built off of DNA.
24:23 Michael Hemstreet
Right.
24:24 Lorien Clemens
You know, and we don't actually have to, again, sacrificed lives in order to get these proteins that our animals need them. You know we have obligate carnivores with cats and dogs also need to have those meat proteins or do best with meat proteins and so I think it's super exciting and our dog eats crickets. We have the cricket meal Gimenes treats and stuff like that too. So I mean I think all of it. You like you're touching right on there with me like one of the things that's very close to my heart, I love--I love that stuff that's going on right now in those alternative protein things, it's totally fascinating. You know the other thing I think that's like exploding right now, and it's kind of in the space that PetHub is in 'cause we do the digital ID tags, but is all these trackers right? So the very first one that came out was I think it's Tag years ago of a Qualcomm one and then of course, whistle brought that out and put the other--but you blink and you see a new one on the market. Is there any differentiator there? I mean obviously whistles kind of been out there and had the market share for the longest time, but I mean is there anything that's really like like, wow, exciting you different there? Or is it just like now that technology's been so well refined that everybody's coming out with it?
25:32 Michael Hemstreet
Yeah, at least one or two companies now are trying to focus... most of them just focus on kind of GPS stuff, right? The location of your pet? That's the most common feature, but a couple of them now are.. focusing on your pets health, in addition to having the GPS tracker, it's got monitors where it's tracking your pets body temperature, heart rate, these kind of things, and so it detects something seems off. It can let you know in an app on your phone, so that seems to be kind of a new area in trackers.
26:03 Lorien Clemens
Yeah, well it's an interesting area too because Voice and Hay Racks came out... Gosh, I don't know 8--7-8 ago and neither one of them really got far off the ground. I think Voice went completely out of business. I don't know where Hay Racks is right now, but it does seem like that maybe they were a little too soon.
26:20 Michael Hemstreet
Yeah.
26:21 Lorien Clemens
To the industry. 'cause yeah that does seem to be the big thing now that I see from a lot of different places, I think that it's again that's factually Interconnectivity, right? Where if we can have these devices start to talk to the veterinary SMIS systems, which you know is another whole thing entirely we could get into about all of those practice management information systems and how they all work, but and getting those all the talk to each other, that could be like super exciting. I would love it if you could like--let's just spend like the last minute or two. What do you think is the most like? Out there science fictiony, groundbreaking thing that either you've heard about or you think is maybe out there on the horizon.
27:05 Michael Hemstreet
Good question. Let's see. Science fictiony. There's some people trying to come up with gadgets where they want to be able to talk to their pet, right? Talk to their dog. And at first I thought was like a parody, right? Like it was satire, right? But some of these they... They're either their collars or there's a company in China that's creating--I think it's a collar or something and it's supposed to be able to... The dog barks, supposed to be able to again with AI and machine learning. Interpret what your pet wants, what is it trying to tell you.
27:53 Lorien Clemens
Right.
27:55 Michael Hemstreet
"I am two and half" and like I said, at first I thought it was it was, is this is April 1st? You know this a joke? It was a real thing. So some of those just seem, you know who knows? I mean give us a couple of decades who knows what? What will come up with, but there's people starting to play around with some of these really kind of science fiction ideas.
28:16 Lorien Clemens
Like out there ones too and there's the ones that are out there that are totally legit that I think are not nearly as like science fictiony as that, but like the mats where the dogs can push the different buttons and like have a conversation with you, and I mean I'm thinking my poor pup. She was testing the PupPod rocker, which I think is a great toy, but she was, you know she's maybe a C student when it comes to that thing I don't know if she could actually do one of these matt's, but i'll watch some of the Tik Tok's and whatever where dogs are like having conversations and the you know the mom is trying to offer one thing and he'll be like no I want this and It's just you know, like is that legit happening? I think Clever Pet maybe is one of the ones that has the pads, but I think they're fascinating--they're wonderful. Well Mike it's really awesome to have you here on the show today. Tell us where we can find out more about all those things that you geek out about.
29:10 Michael Hemstreet
So you can find them at my website, MyDogIsARobot.com.
29:14 Lorien Clemens
Fantastic. yeah check it out. There's a lot of good stuff and I like the way that you both talk about what's new and out there, but then you also talk about the controversies you talk about when people are being snarky with each other--different companies fighting amongst ourselves, and it's a really good overview of all things tech in the industry. So thank you so much for coming on the show today Mike.
29:33 Michael Hemstreet
Oh, thank you for having me. It's been a blast.
29:35 Lorien Clemens
By the way folks if you're interested in learning more about what's happening right now in the pet technology segment of our industry. Gotta make sure that you head over to Mike's website. MyDogIsARobot.com. It has so many great articles about all sorts of things and really really awesome reads. So thank you so much for listening today. This has been Pet Lover Geek powered by PetHub. I'm Lorien Clemens and I can't wait to geek out with you next time.
30:06 Music