What cool automations have you made for your dog?

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41

You could try using a Door/Windows sensor underneath the dogs crate and use a large flat flexible magnet (they're not that strong) on the top of their padding/mattress.
When your dog lies down the magnet gets pushed closer to the door/window sensor and you get notified.

42

Mine are pretty simple..

Contact sensor on the cupboard with the dogs food in (it's all that's stored in that cupboard). If its opened twice within an hour Sonos says they have already been fed, plus i have a tile on dashboard that shows if they've been fed.

A camera to view them when we are out.

And lastly, when we all leave or all go to bed, a Sonos starts a radio station on a low volume so they have something to listen to.

i was considering a message to say check their water when we get home or are getting ready for bed, but we both check and change their water at least 3 times a day and always when we get up and before we go out / put them to bed.

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43

Mine is a mutt nicknamed "Hoover."

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44

Not sure if anyone has said anything like this yet—long day here :sweat_smile:

I don’t have anything for our dogs, but a buddy has his dog ring a little bell when it has to go outside. That would be an easy one to wire up with a contact sensor for a notification.

Edit: For the cat (also applicable to some dog situations), we track how many times she uses the litter box. Then, we know exactly when to change it, or when it’s approaching the danger zone.

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45

My mates cat uses their regular toilet but the little bugger can't put the lid DOWN and he never flushes !

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46

We have a few....

  1. Lock the Petsafe doggie door if the back gates are open, it’s dark out, or no one is home. Safety measure to prevent runaways and getting skunked.
  2. With a contact sensor on the dog food container, track if the dog has been fed breakfast and dinner, which is posted on the tablet in the kitchen (avoids all the “did you feed the dog?” “No, I thought you fed the dog.”)
  3. Ping and annoy the kids (teens) when the dog hasn’t been fed
  4. Track how many times the dog has gone out — all the better to catch those same kids in fibs regarding whether the dog went outside to do his business.
  5. And then my favorite of all: we created a virtual “dog motion detector” (human-immune PIR) by combining a motion sensor at floor level with a sensor at human chest level that is blocked from sensing downward. Then if the floor sensor is active and the chest-level one isn’t, we know a dog and only a dog is in the room. Lots of use cases with that info.

Hope this inspires ideas of your own. Fun question.....

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