Tablet for service dogs

[Catherine]

Someone is working on a Tablet that could be used by service dogs. It would let them communicate important information and even call for help if it is needed. Some your dog could call you an ambulance or warn you of an impending seizure.
Service dogs already have ways of communicating, but this would be so much better.

http://news.google.ca/news/url?sr=1&ct2=...t=2&at=dt0

What if they became good at it and started to really communicate. It could be very interesting to actually hear from your dog.
How about getting a text reminding you to bring home dog food or even dog biscuits. I wonder if the dogs would be able to watch animal planet on the tablet. Some dogs would probably figure it out.

As long as they don't loan their tablets to the cat.

[Tobi]

This is a really interesting idea! It should work very well once the dogs are trained to understand how the tablets work.
Yes....it might be wise not to give them our credit card numbers or our pin codes! So many interesting things can be bought on Amazon nowadays  

Cats....anything could happen....they could even book us a journey on the space shuttle behind our backs. I think cats ought not to have that access to technology!

[Catherine]

I wouldn't want a cat to get a paw on a tablet or a smart phone. They are way too clever and not necessarily on our side. I don't even want to think about what a cat would do. They would probably have fresh caught fish flown in and delivered to the door at $50.00 a pound and they wouldn't share.

Dogs are loving and loyal. They can already use special phones. They put a paw on a button and bark at the person who answers and an ambulance will come. With a tablet they could learn to do more. They could send you a message that your blood sugar is too low or that you are going to have a seizure. Maybe we could even get a dog to remind us about things or tell us our clothes make us look silly. A fashion alert dog! That might be a little harder.

A specially trained dog could alert a doctor that a patient has a tumor or some other medical condition. The tablet could have options for the dog to choose. They would still confirm things with tests, but they would have some idea what tests to use.
The dog would have to belong to the doctor, but why not? If a dog can detect health problems why wouldn't a doctor want one.