Check out this high-tech animal gear for National Pet Day

Did you know that this is National Pet Day in the United States? If you didn’t, go find your pet, give them a hug, and apologize. And if you were aware, go find your pet and give them a hug anyway because they love you.

And you love them right back, so you probably want to celebrate the day by checking out some cool, tech-y ways to make your best non-human friend happy. We’ve gathered up a few cool gadgets and toys that are made just for your buddy. That is assuming you’ve gone the more vanilla, cat/dog/mammal route. If you own anything with scales or spinnerets, you may not get use out of most of this stuff, but it’s pretty cool gear, anyway.

Also note that not all of these things are available currently, but you might still want them on your radar for Dog Kippur or Catsmas or something.

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Kyon Smart Pet Collar

We’ve talked about the Kyon Pet Tracker before, but it bears repeating because this thing is really cool.

It’s a smart pet collar that includes motion, temperature, GPS, and water sensors to let you know if your dog or cat is sick, overheating, lost, or in danger of drowning. And we don’t want any of those things to happen to our little buddies, so that’s all some stuff we’d want to know.

Kyon is currently looking for funding on Kickstarter, and it’s reached $40,000 of its $75,000 goal with a little over a month left in its campaign. It’s set to launch this summer, when the dangers of hot cars and pools become very real.

Petzi Treat Cam

Sometimes it’s tough to have to leave your buddy alone all day while you’re at work or serving jury duty or something. You want to be able to keep an eye on them and maybe even toss them a treat as a reward for taking a really sweet nap on top of all of your stuff. And the Petzi Treat Cam might be the solution to both of those problems, although we really should impress upon you that it’s not a good idea to be distracted with all that pet-monitoring during jury duty. Judges tend to frown on that sort of behavior, and contempt of court is a serious thing.

Petzi is more or less a way to FaceTime your pet. You can see them on your phone or tablet, and they can see you in the little screen on the device. You can also talk to them, take pictures, and give them a little treat to brighten their day.

The Treat Cam costs $169.99, which might sound a bit high considering it’s a webcam with a biscuit chute, but it’s still a pretty cool thing.

CleverPet

Every once in a while, even the proudest of pet owners has a dark moment where they suspect their animal friend might be dumb. Mine came when my dog buddy spent 20 minutes barking at a ceramic pug at my grandma’s house. That was not a good day.

But CleverPet thinks your little friend is smart, and it can prove it. This is a treat and food dispenser that makes your companion solve a light, touch, or sound puzzle before it rewards them with a snack. It could be a good way to keep them active if it’s too hot or cold outside to take them for a walk, or you could just bring it out to prove to your annoyed friend that your dog is more than just the animal who pooped on their bed that one time.

At $299, CleverPet will be even more expensive than the Petzi Treat Cam when it comes out, and we aren’t sure when the release date will be. The company hasn’t announced it yet, but you can join their mailing list on the website, and they’ll shoot you a note when it’s available.

Petnet smart feeder

This iOS-compatible feeding bowl lets you manage meal times and amounts if you have a tubby little kitten or just want to make sure they receive food while you’re at work. It will dispense amounts between one-sixteenth and one and a half cups at a time, so you have a lot of control over what your pet will be nomming upon. The Petnet Mobile app even contains nutritional information for a bunch of different food types so that you can make sure you’re making good choices when you go to the store.

It costs $149 and is currently out of stock on Amazon, but we hope that’s a temporary problem.

Box Kitty

We don’t think dogs would get much use out of Box Kitty unless they need something else to pee on or destroy, but we could see cats enjoying this quite a bit.

It’s a modular, feline housing system that lets you build the perfect fort for your kitteh friend with a few basic components. The set includes boxes, doors, tunnels, and castle-y bits, and it all assembles with a basic hook-and-loop system that lets you quickly build and rebuild based on your needs or your desire to endlessly confuse your cat.

Box Kitty is currently seeking $10,000 on crowdfunding site Indiegogo, and the campaign has a month left.

HurriK9 Ring Launcher

We’ll admit that the name took us a bit to unpack, but the HurriK9 ring launcher is still cool. It says it will launch its rings 100 feet so that your dog can fetch it or your cat can stare at you disdainfully. The rings are made of EVA foam, which is what ugly, stupid Crocs shoes are made of. So finally somebody is using that material for good.

“I used to be a physicist, and then I jumped into space exploration, then solar airplanes,” inventor John Hunter says on the crowdfunding page. “I love making things fly, and I wanted to make the world’s greatest flying toy, and so I built these rings using the aerodynamic principles of an airplane wing.”

It was only by accident that Hunter discovered that pets love the things, so here we are.

The HurriK9 raised an impressive 626 percent of its funding goal on Kickstarter, and it’s currently available for preorder on Indiegogo InDemand. You can pick yours up starting at $40 (it will retail for $50), but you’ll have to wait for all of the Kickstarter backers to get theirs before yours will ship. But Hunter says that should just be a few weeks or so.

Paws and Go

Dogs are rude. We know this. They’ll roll around in poo and then want to come inside and be your best friend again, but then you’ll have to give them a bath instead, and then they’ll be pissy at you the rest of the day.

They also don’t care about walking in mud and then coming inside, and that’s why Paws and Go exists. It’s a doormat for your dog with a hidden compartment you can keep treats in. In order to get the treat, the dog will have to paw at the mat, which means that they’ll incidentally wipe their feet before they get all the way into your house. It’s a little tricky, but it’s still pretty clever.

The mat’s looking for £5,000 (about $7,200) on Kickstarter, and it’s raised about 16 percent of that so far. Creator Harry Cotgrove says that dogs can learn to “use” the mat in less than an hour, which we believe because it’s not so much about teaching them to wipe their paws as it is showing them that free food is available. And dogs love free food more than they love naps on clean laundry.