Use Petmobi to Unleash Your Pet’s Awesomeness!


We just released another update for Petmobi loaded with new features.  Petmobi is not just for fat pets, Petmobi is something all pets can use to share what they’re up to, stay fit, and get rewarded for being awesome.  

Check out some of the cool stuff we’ve added.

Updated news feed

Our completely redesigned news feed is now prettier, faster and lets you discover a whole lot more.  Now you can like posts and comment just like on Facebook.  You can also see the latest activity on all of Petmobi, so you can meet new friends and discover what other pets are doing all over the world.  

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Photo Sharing

We’ve added photo sharing so now you can share all of your pets moments through pictures.  Not only can you share it with everyone on Petmobi, you can share it directly to Facebook!

Notification center

The new notification center will make sure you won’t miss a thing.  We’ll let you know when you have new friends, someone likes your post, writes you a comment and more!  Whenever there’s something new, you’ll see a red icon on your friends tab, we’ll also send you a push notification to get updates in real-time.

Rewards

You can now get daily rewards in the app for helping your pets with their health and fitness goals!  Earn rewards for tracking food, exercise, weight, or being social.  

Rewards come in a couple of different forms.  We have integrated a points system into the app, so doing things like tracking food, exercise or sharing the app with friends will get you points.  Those points can then be redeemed for things like gift cards at iTunes, Amazon, Lowe’s, Fandago and manyother great stores.  You can also use those points instead to enter to win great prizes or donate to charities like the ASPCA. 

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We also some will be surprise discounts and coupons you’ll discover too.  You won’t know where, when or what you get, but you can earn other great offers at cool places like Barkbox!

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Nutrition Tracking Improvements

We’ve added a couple more things to help you better track what your pet is eating and their daily calories.

 We’ve added in an option for setting a custom calorie goal in Petmobi, if your veterinarian recommends a specific goal for your pet you can simply plug that number in for daily calories and it will override our calculations.  This information can be set in your pet’s profile.    

We’ve also added in a treat tracker, so we will let you know if you are feeding your pet too many treats.  Pets’ diets shouldn’t consist of more than 10% treats, if you feed more than this it will display in the info bar of the track tab.  

HOW TO: Setting up your pet’s profile on Petmobi

So, you just downloaded Petmobi.  We wanted to put together a series of blog posts that get you started and help you understand how to use the app.  We’ll begin with the basics of adding your pets to the app.


Adding Your Pet
First - when you launch the app you will see the very first icon on the left is called ‘Pets’.  This is where you will be able to add, edit, view and remove (hopefully not!) your pet’s profile.  To get started, simply click the ‘Add’ button in the top right hand corner of the screen.  This brings up a page where you will fill out all of your pet’s information.  

Picking a Photo
Start by adding a picture for your pet by clicking the ‘Add Photo’ button, this will be visible to all your friends so add something fun!

Your Pet’s Username
This is a unique username to identify your pet within Petmobi, think of it like a twitter handle.  The reason we ask for this is because many people’s pets share the same name. Take for example that your dog’s name is “Buddy” - we need to know which Buddy is your Buddy, so your dogs username may be “Buddy2007”.

The Usual Information
The next bit of information we need are just the basics about your pet - their name, gender, species (dog/cat), and birthday. 

Fitness Information
The next set of information we use to determine a daily calorie goal for your dog or cat, the first being the activity level.

For Dogs
Lazy Dog - Less than 15 minutes of light exercise (walking) per day.
House Pet - Between 15 and 30 minutes of light exercise (walking) per day.  This will be appropriate for most dogs.
Active Dog - More than 30 minutes of moderate exercise (running, jogging) per day.
Working Dog - More than 1 hour of intense exercise per day.
Puppy - For dogs either between 0-3 months and 3-6 months. 

For Cats
Lazy Cat - Less than 15 minutes of light exercise (walking) per day.  This will be appropriate for most cats.
House Cat - About 15 to 30 minutes of moderate exercise (running, chasing) per day. 
Active Cat - More than 30 minutes of moderate exercise per day.  This will be appropriate for outdoor cats.
Kitten - For cats less than 6 months old.

Setting Goals
Next, enter in the current weight of your dog or cat.  If your pet needs to lose weight, enter a goal weight and select “Lose Weight” as your goal.  If your pet just needs to maintain their current weight, then select “Maintain Weight”.  It is important that you discuss this with your veterinarian to determine what the right plan for your pet should be.  

Done!
Hit the save button and that’s it!  Just repeat the process for your other pets and you’re good to start using the app.  We’ll be adding more blog posts like these to make sure you’re getting the most out of Petmobi, so keep checking back!

What is Petmobi?

We’ve finally launched the first version of Petmobi!

So what’s in it?

Petmobi is the first app of its kind that helps your pets lose weight, stay in shape and connect with friends. 

With Petmobi, you can set your pet’s weight loss or maintenance goals, track daily calorie intake from thousands of pet foods, record exercise and track progress over time. Petmobi allows you to create a profile for your pet, upload a photo and include your pet’s information such as name, birthday, gender, weight loss or maintenance goal, and activity level.  By entering in this info, we calculate a daily calorie goal for your dog or cat to help them lose weight or stay fit.  Please remember that you should always consult your veterinarian first before putting them on any type of diet.

We have created a database of 1000s of pet foods, so each day you can search through the database and log what they eat to track daily calories.  Remember that treats and people food count! And if you can’t find the food you’re looking for, you can just add your own. 

We also have an exercise log, so whenever you go for a walk or your pets do any other activity you can log it in the app.  Whether its playing frisbee or chasing the laser pointer, you can track it!  To track progress over time, you can weigh in your pet and view it on a pretty graph to make sure they’re staying on target. 

Petmobi is not just for fat pets.

Petmobi is also the social network for pets.  You finally have a place where you can create profiles for each one of your pets, post status updates as your pets, share activity, connect with friends, and more.   By using the app, you can also earn badges and great rewards such as coupons and exclusive offers.  The more you use the app, the more you win!

This is just the start.

We already have plans to make Petmobi even more awesome.  We’ll be posting some sneak peeks of upcoming features soon, if you have any ideas for things that you’d like in the app just let us know!  Shoot us an email at contact@petmobi.com, find us at facebook.com/petmobi or on Twitter (@petmobi)!

Pet Obesity and why we created Petmobi.

My wife is a veterinarian, and several months ago I asked her “what is the biggest problem you see at work?”  She just looked at me and said: “Fat dogs.”  Her answer shocked me.  I couldn’t believe it at first, I thought there’s got to be something else, like cancer or dogs getting hit by cars.  

But then I started looking into the statistics around pet obesity.  According to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention,  53% of adult dogs and 55% of cats were classified as overweight or obese by their veterinarians. Those numbers are pretty staggering.  With adult human rates around 35% and all of the national attention that’s been building over the past couple of years, how come we aren’t doing something about this for our pets?

There are a few issues that are at the root of pet obesity but it comes down to lack of knowledge.   First, people typically have no idea how much they should be feeding their pet, the suggested amounts on the back of the bag are far too general.  Secondly, pet food companies aren’t required to label nutritional information on the bags, so even if you did know how much to feed, you’d have to go do research to figure out if it’s the right amount.  

I’m a problem solver (and a tech guy), so I started looking for solutions and was pretty disappointed.  Out of all the apps and technology that exists for people tracking calories and exercise, there was nothing for pets.  It’s no wonder why pets are fat (and getting fatter).

So, why did we create Petmobi?

The answer is simple really, because there just are too many fat pets out there and nothing good enough to solve the problem. 

And how will Petmobi help?

Petmobi is the first pet health, exercise and weight loss an app for the iPhone and Android.  We’ve used veterinary formulas to calculate your pet’s daily calorie needs, so you know exactly how much you should be feeding.  Not only that, you can tack the activities your pet has done throughout the day to determine how many calories they’ve burned.  Pretty cool, huh?

We’ve also built a database of thousands of pet foods with their caloric content, so you’ll now know exactly how much you’re feeding your dog or cat to make sure they’re not going over they’re daily goal.

And, if that’s not enough to keep you motivated, you can earn tags (badges) and points for tracking activities and connect with friends to help their pets lose weight too.

I don’t want to spoil all the surprises, but I will say pet obesity is a problem and we’re going to do our best to help solve it.  Keep checking back to our blog for updates as we wrap up development!

www.petmobi.com