Alex Stone and his wife, Marissa McDaniel, both work full time. They have two dogs that they miss during the day and often have trouble getting home to feed them.
That difficulty inspired them to invent an automated feeder called the Feed and Go, an oval dish with a lid containing six rotating trays for wet and dry food, treats, and medication. It can be controlled remotely by smartphone, tablet or computer.
Using it, dog and cat owners can set six different onetime feedings and 16 repeating feed times. They can also record a message to play at specific times throughout the day and even check on their pets - the dish has a webcam that connects to a wireless network.
Stone began taking preorders for the feeder in October. It costs $199 up front or $20 a month for 12 months; the company, based in Los Angeles, has about 5,500 orders and plans to start shipping this spring.
Like many entrepreneurs, the Stones are taking advantage of evolving trends in the pet industry. One is the extent of pet ownership: According to the American Pet Products Association, a trade group, there are now more than 80 million dogs owned in the United States, and a USA Today analysis of census data found more households with a dog than with a child.
Perhaps more important, many pet owners are treating their dogs and cats as if they were children - quite a shift from the days when the dog slept in the garage, ate table scraps and “occasionally got their burrs taken out,” said Clay Mathile, who built the pet food company Iams and sold it to Procter & Gamble for $2.3 billion in 1999.
That changed mindset is driving billions in spending -$55.8 billion last year, according to the American Pet Products Association - and has encouraged a wave of innovation, with many products and services incorporating sophisticated technologies.
Laird Koldyke is founder and managing director of Winona Capital Management in Chicago, which has invested in PetSense, a Scottsdale, Ariz., chain with nearly 100 stores in the United States. He said the change in consumer behavior was most apparent among young professionals, who are waiting longer to marry and have children, and empty nesters, whose children have grown and left.
“There’s this desire to share something together, and that’s often a pet,” Koldyke said. Combine that desire with rising education and income levels, he said, and you have people migrating toward higher-end products.
One such device is called PetChatz. It enables pet owners to interact with their dogs or cats when they cannot be with them. The device can be flush-mounted over a power outlet and has a speaker, webcam, LCD screen, and scent and treat dispensers, as well as sound and motion sensors.
PetChatz is the first product from Anser Innovation in Minneapolis and should be available this spring. Lavin said the company had raised about $2.5 million from angel investors. The product will retail for $349.
Another company that helps dogs endure lonely hours is iFetch, which lets small and medium-size dogs play fetch by themselves. The iFetch is a motorized toy with a funnel on top, where the dog can insert a ball, and a nose at the front, from which the ball is ejected.
Denny Hamill founded iFetch in Austin, Texas, with his daughter, Debbie Hamill. They introduced the product in December, financing it with a significant personal investment and a Kickstarter campaign that raised almost $90,000. The company has 2,500 orders for the $100 device. “If you set the machine at 30 feet, that’s a good, hard game of fetch for a dog,” Hamill said.
Food is also in demand. JustFoodForDogs, a Newport Beach, Calif. company founded in April 2010, sells nutritionally balanced, human-grade food prepared in state-of-the-art, Agriculture Department-certified kitchens.
Shawn Buckley said Just-FoodForDogs, which has raised about $2.6 million in investment capital, was already profitable.
And he said he was confident that changes in the pet industry were just beginning: “Within my lifetime, there will come a day when people look back and say: ‘Remember when all dog food came in bags? Remember that we kept meat in a bag for three years ?’”
Business, Pages 70 on 04/20/2014