November 19, 2025 • 34 mins
What if your dog had a way to tell you exactly what they needed—whether it was a bathroom break, comfort, or even help in an emergency?
In this episode of The Dog Who Asked for More, I sit down with Mark Condon, creator of iPuppy, the smart communication button inspired by his senior dog, Champ. What started as a personal solution for one aging Lab has grown into a global tool for dog training, enrichment, and even life-saving service dog communication. Whether you’re dealing with puppy potty training, supporting a reactive adult dog, or caring for a dog with medical needs, this episode is packed with insights into how technology can bridge the communication gap—without replacing the human connection or hands-on training.
In this episode:
- Hear how smart tools like iPuppy are enriching the lives of dogs and giving them a voice—literally.
- Learn why your dog’s “behavior issue” might just be a missed communication cue.
- Discover how small bits of tech can support, not replace, your existing training routines and deepen the bond between you and your dog.
Press play to hear how one dog’s quiet ask led to a global shift in how we train, enrich, and truly listen to our dogs.
The Dog Who Asked for More Extras:
Get a free copy of Paws, Brains, and Fun Enrichment eBookhttps://tinyurl.com/enrichmenttdwafm
Book a FREE 15-minute call with Em
https://tinyurl.com/tdwafmbooknow
Email thedogwhoaskedformore@gmail.com to get in touch with Em
Looking to BOOST your pet’s daily meal? Try PetMatRx supplements, use code FITZ20, and save! https://petmatrx.com/?ref=tdwafm
This podcast explores real-life dog behavior and training through the lens of a canine nutritionist, dog coach, and retired vet tech—diving into reactivity, dog obedience, dog health, dog food, dog habits, dog lifestyle, canine enrichment, pet enrichment, dog myths, and what it actually takes to support reactive dogs safely and calmly. Whether you’re a dog mom navigating reactivity, building the human–dog bond, choosing dog products, or just trying to create a calmer dog life with your canine, you’ll find grounded strategies to build trust, improve dog behavior, and help your dog feel safe, understood, and supported.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What if your dog had a button totell you what they needed?
Whether it's a bathroom break, attention, or even a life saving
alert? Welcome to the Dog who Asked for
more, the podcast helping dog parents who feel stuck and
overwhelmed by their pup. Finally let go of the guilt.
Learn to communicate clearly andbuild the bond you've always
dreamed of through a partnershipbased approach that combines
(00:22):
training, nutrition and enrichment instead of chasing
the quick fixes that don't actually work.
I'm EM. And in this episode, you'll
learn how one dog named Champ inspired a smart communication
tool that gives pets a voice, why missed cues lead to
frustration and how tech can bridge the gap without replacing
training. And how I Puppy is supporting
(00:44):
everyday pet parents and servicedog handlers around the world.
Today I'm joined by Mark Condon,a husband, father of two,
financial planner, and the accidental inventor of I Puppy,
a smart training button for dogs.
What began as a way for his senior dog Champ, to communicate
his bathroom needs turned into adevice helping pet parents,
service dog handlers, and even medical alert teams stay
(01:07):
connected to their dogs. Mark, let's start with Champ.
Can you share the story of how he inspired the first I Puppy
button? I got Champ when he was 10 weeks
old. I had him since he was a little
puppy, a little over 14 years. And as you said, I'm in financed
by trade and I have a lot of meetings and now everything's
pretty much virtual. And at my previous house, I had
(01:28):
a couch behind me and Champ would always be lying down on
the couch behind me. You'd be falling asleep in the
middle of meetings that you see him making his legs like in the
middle of a meeting like his, like he's chasing a rabbit.
He was a staple for probably five years.
As he aged, his back legs becamevery weak.
And our office was in the basement, so we had to go down
flight of stairs and it just proved to be too difficult for
(01:50):
him. So I carried him up and down the
stairs for about a year just because he wanted to come down.
I wanted him down next to me. I didn't want to leave him on
another floor of the house by himself.
And I just got to a point where his back legs were just so weak
that it just, it didn't make sense for him to come down in
the office with me anymore. So he had a bit on the main
floor of our home, which it killed me.
We weren't side by side. And I wanted a device that could
(02:12):
do two things, either keep an eye on him at any point in time
and just check in. And there's plenty of cameras
out there, plenty of good ones. But more importantly, I want us
away from to notify me if he hadto go to the bathroom.
But a more modern day version than hanging those annoying
bells by the door, right? Because as he got older, the
window of when he could tell youthat he had to go out was just
(02:33):
getting shorter. And I was not being side by side
with him. I wasn't always going to know.
I googled it, I researched and Ijust couldn't believe there
wasn't anything out there where you can just get a push
notification sent to your phone from your dog.
Think of it like a ring doorbellfor your dog.
I just couldn't believe there wasn't wasn't anything out there
like that. So that's where the idea for I
(02:55):
puppy came from. Can't rest in peace, champ.
He, he passed probably 3 months into the process of when we came
up with the idea. It was March and she lasted four
months into the process where wecame up to the idea.
I need to pass. So like I never got a chance to
even try a prototype with him, but you know, as you can tell,
he was a chocolate lab. So as you can tell by the logo,
you know, it's a way to kind of keep champs memory alive.
(03:18):
We always try to throw little, whether it's social media posts
or something, just kind of, you know, to champ as we continue on
this process. What a super neat way to make
your life easier. Make your dog's life easier, but
also give him a way to communicate with you his needs,
especially as he's aging. Aging dogs require so much more
attention. The doorbells on the door.
(03:40):
We used to have those, but I took them off because Fitz would
just like hit them so hard that they would just swing around.
You know, they are, they're annoying.
I think that it's really cool that you could just get a push
notification. And you're right, it is the Ring
doorbell for dogs. What a genius idea.
Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I wonder.
I don't. I probably can't like
copyrighted, say, Ring doorbell for dogs, but that's essentially
(04:02):
like what it is. I don't want Ring to come after
me, but that's essentially what it is.
It's the modern day version of hanging those annoying bells by
the door. You get a push notification sent
to your phone from your dog. I mean, it's, it's, it's pretty
cool. Lot of what we talk about on the
show is communication and understanding our dogs.
So for many of us we miss our dogs subtle cues all the time.
(04:24):
What do you think most pet parents overlook when it comes
to communication with their dog?I mean a lot.
I mean, dogs, they can't talk, right?
There's only so many things thatthey can do.
They can bark, they can whine, they can scratch by the door.
In the pet tech space, people are trying to find ways to just
enrich their dogs lies even moreand have more direct
(04:45):
communication with them. And I think as technologies
comes out, there's so much more that's coming that I think it's
really gonna help people bridge the gap of the communication
with their dog. Even just simple like one
feature of the eye Puppy, which we'll get into at some point is
it was initially created for reaching your neighbors or dog
walkers if you're not home, but you can set it up so multiple
people receive these notifications.
(05:05):
If your dog's sitting there homealone and had to go to the
bathroom, there's really nothingthat you can do, right?
Unless you have an automatic doggie door or just a doggie
door with a fence in the yard, we can let your dog out.
Like there's no way to communicate with with your dog
without something like this. You know, the cameras can only
do so much. You can't really communicate
with your dog, right? But with the eye puppy you can.
And if your dog needs to go to the bathroom and you're not
(05:27):
home, you can set it up so your neighbor, a dog Walker, can come
by and they can let the dog out for you.
So there's just constant communication and you're in a
dog. Whether you're out for a night
or on town running some errands or just away on vacation,
there's always a way to be in touch with your dog.
Communication is just finally starting to hit that level where
people want to have that deeper level of communication and
(05:49):
relationship with their dog. And I agree with you, I think
that there is going to be so much tech coming out in the next
5 to 10 years that's just going to blow us away.
And I can't wait to see what we come up with.
But in the meantime, products like yours really bring us to
the next level. And you have a lot, as you said,
features that I puppy can provide for us.
(06:11):
So tell us about those features.Tell us how it works and all of
the kinds of problems that it can help solve.
Absolutely, Yeah. So when we're first designing
the I Puppy, I still have the initial sketches that we had of
all the different ideas of how we're going to make the product
and how we landed on the one we eventually landed on.
We wanted a product that was a little bit of a raised level, so
(06:31):
it's not super flat and we wanted it on the ground versus
hanging up on a wall. And the part of the reason for
that is we really wanted the camera function of the I Puppy
to be at the front of the unit. There's the 24/7 camera.
It's 160° wide, so it's a prettywide camera.
It's a very nice quality camera too.
We didn't cheap out on that at all.
(06:52):
So that's a huge component to this.
It's got a two way speaker on the unit.
So when you open up the I Puppy app, you can listen in to
whatever's happening in the purview of the room and see
what's happening. And you can hold down the
microphone. You can talk into your phone and
it comes out with the speaker onthe side of the unit so your dog
can hear your voice. It has motion detection, so you
(07:12):
can set the sensitivity of that whether you want it to go off,
you know, pretty, pretty easily with something light, even just
like a like sometimes when I'm at home and though there's wind
and the leaves are blowing around in the, in the windows,
you it'll go off. You can set it how sensitive or
touchy you want that to be. And then anytime the motion
sensor goes off, you get a 10 second video playback so you can
(07:34):
see what's going on when that occurred.
And one of the most important features that we'll get into,
which initially I had said was created for neighbors and dog
walkers is inviting multiple people to receive that
notification. And we live in a townhouse
community at the time when we thought of this.
So I said, oh, it'd be great if my neighbors who worked tight
knit community people in apartment buildings, your
neighbor could come let your dogout for you.
(07:55):
That one feature alone has changed our marketing and our
focus for 90% of what we focus on with I puppy and that is the
service dock space. So somebody reached out, it's me
about last summer saying, hey, can I use this for an emergency?
My mom recently had her legs amputated.
She's in a wheelchair, and she has a service dog.
(08:17):
And if she falls off, I would love for my dog to be able to
press the button and notify me for an emergency.
My simple brain, I didn't even, it never even occurred to me.
I was just like, mind blown. I was yeah, like, absolutely.
I was like, holy, This all of a sudden is like a medical life
alert system for service dog handlers.
And I struggled with really where to focus the marketing
(08:39):
where there's other buttons out there, the talking buttons.
They've done a very good job marketing and they have a very
big community. So it's a very wide market for
potty training and train your dog to press a button for
whatever it is they want. But then we also have this
service dog space where this could literally at some point I
puppy will save a life. It's inevitable that it's going
to happen on the potty training side.
(09:00):
It's a it's a nice to have. It's not a necessity.
Whereas on the service dog space, it is more of a
necessity. And you talk about the dogs.
I mean, they can, they can pressa button in two seconds, right?
The train, they already have so much training that it's very
simple for them to pick up that cue.
Whereas the everyday pet parent might bring it to a trainer and
the trainer can say, hey, I've trained your dog.
Press the button when I feel thebathroom.
(09:21):
Use the eye puppy. Or if you're training it
yourself, the average pet parent, let's be honest, they
might just get lazy after a weekand just say, my dog can't do
it. They're too stupid.
And at the end of the day, it's up to the individual.
They have to train the dog to doit.
The dog wants to learn, they want to be enriched, they want
to learn how to do it, but you have to train it.
When we got our inventory right at the end of 24, we really put
a big focus on just the service dog space.
(09:42):
Really just trying to niche downand kind of become the go to
product for that type of a situation and really own that
space for lack of better words. And it's really, it's really
been a big move to focus on that.
I went to the Assistance Dog International Conference in
Orlando, FL in March and that was my really my first venture
into a service dog space. Now remember, I come from
(10:03):
finance. I have no dog training
experience whatsoever. I have even less service dog
experience, Zero. And I somehow stumbled into the
service dog space. I know nothing about this space.
So going into ADI in March, I had no idea what to expect
entering a space where I know nothing about it.
Essentially, I'm just trying to to convey where I probably can
(10:23):
fit and it's amazing what happens when you find your
clientele like the right people.Everyone said how amazing it was
since that conference, there's Lions hearing dogs in Australia
that they have about 30 units out there themselves that that
they purchased. We're in Lithuania, we're in
Switzerland. All this came from this, that
ADI conference and we have some really good partnerships and
(10:46):
collaborations with service dog organizations all over the
United States. It's been kind of mind blowing
where it's taken us, you know, from a simple concept of my 14
year old chocolate lab having togo to the bathroom to now in the
service dock space. So it's it's been a pretty cool
evolution, if you will, of just I puppy in general.
What a cool thing that you have,something that a wide variety of
(11:08):
people can use, but that it can do something that is also very
specific. If that's what it needs to be,
that's innovative, and there could be so many different
things. I'm sure people will write in
and say, well, what if we did this instead?
Or what if we did this instead? Or could I train my dog to use
it for this? What a great thing.
Just so many iterations that youcould come up with from this.
(11:31):
And you're right, yeah, a service dog doesn't need to be
trained how to hit a button. They'll figure it out.
I mean, of course, they have to make the association between if
something's happening to handlerhit the button so that 911 is
called or a family member is called or, or whatever it is in
that case, versus I need to go to the bathroom and the random
gamble of who's going to come lock me.
(11:51):
And that. I mean, but that's totally fine
though too, because you're stillserving the needs of a dog,
which is something that I don't think a lot of people really
cared about until the last few years.
We're worried about what the dogs need versus how we expect
them to live within our world, which is such a cool thing.
Yeah, it's really cool. And just see all the other tech
(12:12):
products out there. You like GPS callers that are
out there. There's a there's a few popular
ones and it's just amazing what people can do in the tech space
now that growing up myself, nothing was out there.
And I can't even imagine what's going to be out in 5 to 10
years. I mean, we'll probably be on I
puppy 3 to version three or fouror five.
At that point. There's already some updates and
changes we want to make to it with the app development and
(12:34):
we're talking to our app developers now.
But 5-10 years from now, I can'teven imagine what version we're
going to be on of I Puppy and that kind of how it's evolved.
I would love to have a two way video.
We talk about two way audio. Imagine I'm in a two way video
with, you know, that the paw maybe comes up and it's like
it's your video playing back. I don't know, something like
that. And and still I want to
incorporate it with one of thosedoggy doors.
(12:55):
I think my queue is a pretty bigcompany where the dog has to go
to the bathroom. If you have a doggy door or any
door, you can remotely let your dog out straight from the I
puppy. Yeah.
And the the door opens, you can just let your dog out there.
So you don't even need a neighbor, a dog Walker.
There's so many applications that this could evolve into.
And a lot of people are reachingout.
Even a friend of mine and their grandmother, she's as a like a,
(13:18):
an aide at the house. And she's like, it would be
great if she could even just press the button if she fell or
something. And it was like like a life a
little like, yeah, but what if like, what if she's not wearing
it or something? Or what if like, I don't know,
like there's just so many applications that you could use
where people and senior citizenscan use it to reach their
emergency contacts or something.What happened to them?
But it doesn't have to be the dog.
My 4 year old daughter, she she pressed the button when she has
(13:40):
to get out of the bed in the morning.
She can't leave her room until she calls mommy and daddy
through the eye puppy. We're getting away from the dog
space, but it's just kind of cool all the different
applications that people are thinking of using iPod before.
So it's kind of like echo what you had mentioned, there's just
so many different iterations. Yeah, I know.
I and I don't think it's bad thing to get away from the dog
space. Like I said, you've created
something that can be used for multiple different things.
(14:02):
And again, a little bit of curativity and curiosity goes a
long way. And if your device supports it
and it helps somebody out, that's really all that matters.
Yeah, for sure. And it's just, I think it's just
a matter of time before we see all these other applications
iterations come to fruition withit.
But yeah, the, the dog training,puppy potty training, mostly in
the service tech space are definitely the two that we're
(14:23):
focusing on now. We've had some some good
conversations with some partnerships and collaborations.
We'll see how they come to fruition.
As you know, I went to Super Zooin August.
We got some good conversations going there.
I think we're about to be on Wolf's, the Wolf's app, which is
great. We're just now on Doggo, the
doggo training app, which is great.
Closing 2025 and heading into 26.
(14:45):
I think we have some really goodpartnerships and opportunities
coming, so pretty excited. The way that, like we said,
technology is moving, there's just going to be continued
advancements and ideas and placement for your product.
What role do you see technology playing in supporting, not
replacing, training and enrichment?
I'd think it's huge. Just all these other different
(15:07):
companies. This isn't so much tech, but I
was thinking like swift paws, they had like all this like the
training that they have with swift paws.
Like I just think technology in general is a lot of people think
it's going to replace a lot of different jobs and think of
technology and AI think it's it's going to supplement a lot.
And I think even something like I puppy, like you might miss a
bell. Everyone's got their phone on
(15:28):
them these days. You're not going to miss a
notification pop up on your phone.
You're just you're not going to do it.
Everyone's attached to the phone.
So I think that going back to the callers, I think the callers
are huge. I just think the evolution of
technology is just really going to help everyone bring
themselves closer to their dogs.We are big fans of swift paws at
our house. It combines all of the things
that we need in one area. We're training the dog to do
(15:51):
something new, but we're enriching their life by giving
them a fun activity and we're supporting, like you said, that
energy burn get helping them getthat out because I have a dog
that's like woo woo woo all the time and that really helps.
So it makes in my day easier because I can maybe answer
emails and push the button to make the course run at the same
(16:12):
time versus trying to stumble around the yard answering emails
and throwing, throwing a ball atthe same time.
There's just so much that we cando to really give our dogs
better activities with just minor adjustments and
technology. People do get a little bit
afraid of technology advancing to a certain point and maybe
(16:32):
taking over jobs and certain things, but at the same time it
really does help make our lives a lot more livable and give many
benefits to kids and dogs and people in general.
For sure. I mean, you go back 25 years
when the Internet was really cool coming out, people thought
it was going to replace all these jobs that, Can you imagine
the world without the Internet these days?
Everything you do is on the Internet.
(16:53):
I mean, Facebook's only 25 yearsold and it's just like your cell
phone, the smartphone technologyin general is it's going to
supplement and, and help you more so than take over certain
jobs. And you know, it goes back to
dog training and such, like it's, it's a supportive tool for
you to help in a day-to-day with, with your dog.
Like you said, you're pressing abutton while your dog is getting
(17:13):
the energy they need, while you're just sitting in the, you
know, the comfort of your home is sending an e-mail, which is
going out for an hour long walk,right?
And then even other like talkingbuttons, you know, I know
technically they're somewhat of a competitor of ours, but
they're, they're creating this communication and like enriching
dogs to learn how to press certain buttons.
And it's super helpful. It's like really cool to watch
(17:35):
what dogs can do. With and dogs have brains and
people forget that helping dogs think and make choices and do
different things is really, really beneficial for them and
it gives them something that they don't normally get out of
their day-to-day life. You know, most people just say,
oh, my dog's fine. They can hang out on the couch
all day or they can do this or that.
(17:57):
But I would be really, really bored if I had to sit on a couch
all day and do nothing. So it'd be really neat to see
down the road and iteration of IPuppy where you can play like a
game with it or something and teach your dog, you know, like
some kind of interactive thing. That'd be really fun, I think
that. 'D be really cool.
That might be version like 5 point O, but I think that's
(18:17):
definitely something that we canincorporate down the line.
You mentioned that I Puppy has gained traction with the service
dog community. Can you share another story
where it's made an impact with the listeners?
Yeah, I know a couple things. So on the service dog space,
like there was one individual, I'm sure you've heard of her,
Jamie Simpson. Her Instagram is embracing Echo.
She's a personal friend. Oh, Jimmy's Jimmy is one of the
(18:39):
nicest people like I've ever hadthe pleasure of meeting and we
missed her at super zoo. But she's an incredible person
to even have the bravery to share the story to share her
story story publicly. But you know you just she's used
I puppy and you see it in some of the the videos and echo this
famous video was jumping over this couch like a superhero and
(19:01):
pressing the button. But even just like seeing her
husband get a phone call with the I puppy, I mean, it's just
like it's wild. There's a organization down in
Texas called a Patriot Pause. And they have some incredible
stories that they're doing with some of their veterans with PTSD
and loss of limbs. They have some stories that
they're working on right now with incorporating the I puppy.
(19:24):
It's really just been incredibleto see.
But we get we get emails constantly.
Just one woman. She's like, I'm 70 and I I'm
like, I'm at home with Ms. with,with my dog.
She just ordered an I puppy 2 days ago.
She's like, this is going to be such a lifesaver for me because
I, I don't have any other way toreach my emergency contacts if
something were to happen to me. At the end of the day, people
want to be able to live, you know, independently.
(19:46):
It's really encouraging when I get random emails like that from
from people and I don't know howthey found this, whether it's a
search, whether it's through social media or what, but it's
really, it's really encouraging to get these types of emails
from people just because everybody they just want to have
be able to have the independenceand the Peace of Mind to just
like be alone without the fear of something happening and not
be able to reach their emergencycontacts or something.
(20:07):
As far as other personal storieslike.
There's there's a dozen of them.They all kind of blend together
because they're all kind of similar but a little different
in their own right. But it's just that we get a
constant flow of females with usfor people sharing their story.
Cool thing to get to be part of people's personal stories like
that without even being there. You get to help them in a way
that they were not able to have some form of communication in
(20:31):
order to cause the falling story.
I have a grandma, she is in an assisted living facility now but
she fell before and she didn't have her little medallion on her
to push the button to to call. Now she doesn't have a dog so it
probably maybe wouldn't work forher.
But if she had one and it was onthe floor and it was closer for
her to be able to get that's I could see where that will
(20:53):
definitely help. And you're right, one day this
will save someone's life. It absolutely will, and probably
more than one life. For sure, yeah.
And it's just, it's just wild tothink of that.
Yeah. It's just like, it's it's still
obviously I don't want it to, you know what I mean?
Like, I don't like, it'll be, it'll be cool to hear that it
did. But like, it's even like, that's
such a scary situation for that individual.
(21:15):
But I'm glad to be able to provide the Peace of Mind that
it can eventually save a life. It's like getting life
insurance. You never want to, you know, you
get it, I hope, and you never need it.
You know what I mean? It's it's really cool to be able
to create a product that can have this type of an impact on a
space that I frankly knew nothing about even like 18
months ago. It's wild how just a small idea
can turn into something so big. And like I said, I think that
(21:37):
you're going to find a lot more things that it can do for other
people. You know, your founder story,
It's it's kind of a scrappy founder story.
What do you think the hardest part of taking this personal
solution to a startup was? I have no background in any of
this. So oddly enough, I think I
mentioned, I mentioned you, I used to notice the podcast
(21:57):
called Boston's Best and episode85.
There's this company called 52 Launch help you bring your idea
to life. And they were two miles down the
street from my house. I never heard of them before and
got introduced to them by somebody else that used that.
And I said, wow, that's really cool.
I always love the idea of Shark Tank and like entrepreneurs and
bringing like a dream to reality, if you will.
And you know, we're going back and forth and ideas and, and I
(22:19):
puppy came up. So I hired them.
So what they do is they have a team of engineers that help you
design and talk through what youwant, the features and such.
And so they're essentially like the middleman between yourself
and manufacturer. They have great relationships,
ships with manufacturers. So I used them and their team
and we went back and forth and all these ideas of and
iterations of how to create the I puppy.
(22:40):
I still remember the first 3D print.
It's in my house somewhere and from there we made this overseas
and the difficulty there is the language barrier more or less
right. So like I'm communicating with
the third party, 52 launches, then communicating with the
manufacturer who if they have follow up questions goes back to
52 launch, then it goes back to me and they don't fully
(23:00):
understand everything that we'reasking for.
So that the hardest part was really the patience on creating
the product that we wanted because you know, they're just
looking to create a product and create a bunch of them and kind
of get paid. Whereas I want a product that
I'm not forgetting anything. You know, if I'm going to commit
to creating a product like this,like I want to make sure it has
every feature that we can possibly think of.
And with that being said, there's a couple that we didn't
(23:22):
think of that'll be on the next,hopefully the app update.
The manufacturing is incredibly long process, the shipping
really just the timeline and very much underestimated the
time that it took us over 2 1/2 years from idea to actually have
the first shipment of inventory here in Boston, MA.
It took almost three years, a few months shy at three years.
So the timeline took a took a very long time and you know, I
(23:46):
don't know anything. I just stumbled like into
creating a product and I'm not an engineer, you know, I come up
with ideas like, well, you can'tmanufacture that, that's
impossible. So OK, well, how do we do it?
Like so like learning that wholeprocess was a very big
undertaking. And then when you get the
product, you got to make sure that the back end of the
business is up and running. So like ones the website insight
(24:06):
to the social media to people signing up for, you know, potty
training checklist or service dog checklist.
You got to make sure all those e-mail sequences lined up
correctly and they're flowing ina certain way.
Even stuff like that. When you start a business, all
these other things that I had absolutely no idea about.
Starting a business is insanely difficult because you got to
make sure all the pieces connecteven before you have a finished
(24:29):
product, because if you want people to sign up for pre-orders
and such, you got to make sure that everything lines up and
flows correctly. And you got to, you got to have
ACRM, you got a way to track allof it.
It's really cool, but it's not for the faint of heart.
It's, it's, it takes so much time and effort.
I completely underestimate how long it was going to take and
the effort. I was like, oh, it'll be cool to
have like a brand product to life.
(24:49):
And there's so much more that went into it.
I mean, I'm usually awake and this is by no means like a badge
of honor. I'm usually up around 2:00 in
the morning and I'm working on Ipuppy from like 2:30 to probably
6 before my kids wake up. And then it's like breakfast,
daddy time, daycare drop off. And I have a full time job.
So I'm doing that, you know, more or less from 9:00 to 5:00
(25:11):
fitting in as much I puppy stuffas possible, like randomly
throughout the day and you have daycare picked up and you get
bedtime and you get dinner time and story time.
It's just like the only time that I have is like the those
wee hours in the morning when noone's up where I can really
focus. Like I said, it's not for the
faint of heart, but we have a mission and like it's very clear
and we have product now. Like it took almost three years
(25:31):
to get to this point now, like now's the time and they just,
you know, you got to make it happen.
So it's, I don't know if I answered your question.
That was the long winded answer,I guess of starting a business
and the challenges. But there's just, there's so
many and you can't, you have no idea what to, you can't plan for
it. You have no idea, like what to
expect. I don't know, like I've used
(25:52):
Chachi BT to build code on my website.
Chachi PT has been like my best friend because I don't know, I
have no idea how to do that. And I've learned a ton.
But it's just, yeah, there's so much that goes into it and it's
really rewarding. Now at this point, somebody in
Montana bought 4 of them the other day today.
We're now in Lithuania. She just bought 3 Somebody in
Lithuania ring like it's just like we're in we're currently in
(26:12):
nine different countries. So it's like it's like cool to
actually finally see it coming to fruition.
I don't know how you're just piece mailing 27 things together
at any certain time, but it's. Yeah, pretty cool.
Well, first of all, I can attestto that you are up at crazy
hours because you and I exchanged some emails and some
very crazy hours. So I live that life too.
(26:33):
Yeah, I, I, I'm usually like scheduling emails for like 6:00
AM so people don't think I'm like some crazy nut job.
But there's some people. In my case, she doesn't care.
Might be up you got to do it when you have time to do it.
I have the same thing, you know,I've got a lot going on and, and
running more than one business and it, it really can get a lot
going on your plate and it's just, it can be very
overwhelming. And yeah, it does take time.
(26:54):
I'm, I'm super there on the timeline thing.
I, I've learned very much how tobe patient because of my dog and
because of this podcast. So I, I totally get that.
I totally get that. And ChatGPT has also become a
really good resource for me. It always amazes me how much I
don't know. Yeah, like so for me, same.
I don't have this marketing brain.
(27:16):
Like I'm very much what's the analytical side, left brain, I
think, right. I'm very much the analytical
side. And when it comes to creatives
and stuff like that, like I throw it in a championship team,
like give me like 12 examples ofwhat you think would work in
this type of a situation. I'm usually blending them
together, but it gets my creative juices flowing.
So going back to the tech of just helping you and supporting
(27:38):
you, that is something that I'd be months behind if I didn't
have something like PPT. Even like little tweaks on the
website like Shopify, like move some stuff around.
Like where is this located? 4 seconds I found I knew where
it was located. I'm sure Google could have done
it too, but like, it's just, they're two different types of
animals. But yeah, it's, it's helped me
tremendously just on different certain, certain aspects.
(27:59):
I use it a lot of times for likeidea generating and you know
ideas for website copy and stuff.
For sure. Do you have an I puppy with you?
I do, I do you. Want to show what it looks like
and and kind of explain how it works a little bit.
Sure, Yeah. So this is the I puppy.
So it's a plug in unit. And the reason for that is 24/7
(28:19):
camera feed. So a battery would just, it
would just kill the camera, would kill the battery.
If it was battery only, I would kind of defeat the purpose for a
lot, especially the service dog space.
People use it as a lifeline typeof switch search situation.
So it's a pretty big button. It only takes a half a pound of
pressure. I've had a dog as small as 4 lbs
press the eye puppy, which was apretty big feat.
(28:40):
And when the dog presses the button, I don't know people
would be or hear this, but it makes a little noise when dogs
press the button. And then when they do, you get a
push notification sent to your phone.
So on my phone, I have a push notification from ipuppy that
pops up and when I open it up, it takes you right to the ipuppy
app. And then I have Face ID set up.
And then when you open up the notification, it takes you right
(29:03):
to a video call with your dog essentially.
So you answer it, want to mute it because they're right next to
each other. So it's like bouncing back and
forth when you answer it. So you're literally receiving a
video call from your dog. This is the camera.
And then you know from here you can screenshot photos, record
videos, there's the two way speaker.
And then within the settings youcan set up the motion alert and
(29:24):
invite family and friends and such.
That's what it looks like. You won't get a notification on
your phone. You open it up, it takes you
right to the camera right at thefront of the unit.
So you're literally getting a video call from your dog.
It comes with four anti scratch pads in the back of the unit and
we also provide 2 uses of doublesided 3 M tape.
So if people wanted to have it amore firmly on the floor they
can do that. I put on both hardwood and tile
(29:45):
for a month in my house and it didn't scratch up or leave any
marks on the floor. But I thought we've had £130
Newfoundland not be able to moveit, which was like a pretty big
test. You don't have to stick it down
somewhere but if you wanted to leave it firmly in place you
could. And it's not going to scuff up
your floors or anything like that.
Just connects directly to your Wi-Fi.
You download the ipuppy app, youregister your e-mail address,
and then you add, go to. There's a plus sign.
(30:07):
You add an Ipuppy, the unit you put in your Wi-Fi network, and
there's a QR code that pops up on your phone and then the
camera at the front of the unit scans the QR code.
You know, within 30 to 60 seconds you're connected to your
Wi-Fi. The whole thing should take you
less than less than 5 minutes, probably just a couple minutes
to actually set up so. I have a question for you.
Based on that, it notifies somebody, right?
You get the push notification ifsomebody doesn't respond in like
(30:31):
a certain amount of time, does it?
Try somebody else? So no, you can set up so three
different people receive that notification.
So each, each time the buttons pressed, a push notification
gets sent out to the three emergency contacts that you got
set up. So the difference between this
and like when I think there's another button, like a big
(30:51):
yellow one that will go to person #2 if person #1 doesn't
answer that is different becauseit's a landline.
But like, they're the interface between an app and a landline.
They're just two completely different types of interfaces.
So this is just like any other notification that you get on
your phone, whether it's a text message or Facebook notification
(31:14):
e-mail, it pops up on your phonethat way.
And if the dog presses it multiple times, there'll be
multiple notifications that pop OK.
Cool, cool, very cool. Yeah, and it doesn't go, it does
not connect to I'd say all but one person we spoke to, like
thousands of people said they don't want it to go to 911
because most of the time it's not an emergency.
So they figure, you know, you saw how quickly I received.
(31:36):
I mean, my phone's right here, but you'll get the you get an
alert within 510 seconds into your phone.
And from there, people can probably quit pretty quickly.
Determine if you need not after Super Zoo.
I met the head of the tech department at Chewy and as of
yesterday, we are officially live on Chewy, which is a
pretty, pretty big deal. So we're pretty excited about
(31:56):
that. So you can check us out on our
website. That's incredible.
And that is a big deal. And this show is called The Dog
Who Asked for More and Champ whoreally asked you for more, And
he helped you eliminate the guesswork out of what he needed.
As he got older, he asked for more communication, more clarity
and more dignity. What did listening to him teach
(32:17):
you about the way dogs ask us for or more?
Man, I mean, after so many years, you can usually just look
at your dog. It's like a it's like a spouse
like you know exactly what it isthat they want when they're just
looking at you. But I would say the hard part
with him as he really like declined.
He didn't always know when he had to go to the bathroom in
time. And I think like that was like
(32:38):
the most difficult part of understanding exactly what he
needed. I think I puppies just, yeah,
I'm like an emotional thing about it.
But I thought it was just like another way that if he had stuck
around would have been another way for him to tell me like what
he wanted and just like help with that communication piece
because like, you just see the look in his eyes.
Definitely give your dog some grace.
(33:00):
And yeah. And dignity like you.
Said yeah, dignity be there for them.
Yeah, absolutely. If you could give one small
challenge to the person listening right now, whether it
be in life or with their dog, what would it be?
Spend more time with your dog. Go for that extra to walk.
Don't be lazy. Don't just sit around on the
couch. Get an eye puppy, get a swift
pause. Give them the energy like your
(33:22):
dog needs all this energy. They're not just something
that's just going to like you said, laying around bored on a
couch all day. They want to do stuff like take
the time. Just get do something with your
dog. I don't care how cold it is.
I walked champ when it was like 6° outside, not for long because
it's like the rock salt that they sprayed around in my
neighborhood would like hurt hispaws.
I put like stuff on his feet. Just spend more time with your
(33:42):
dog. Like you don't know if you have
six years or 14 years with them.So like my challenge to you is
just like, get your dog outside today.
Get them something. It could just be like a little
licky mat. Get them something that's going
to enrich them. Do something for your dog today.
That is a super excellent message.
I absolutely love that. Now that you know about I Puppy,
you can go check it out for yourself.
(34:04):
Make sure you check Chewy and check out I Puppy's website For
more information. And of course, there will
probably be a discount code, so don't hesitate to ask for that
if you don't see in the show notes.
And remember, be kind, spread joy and spend the time with your
dog before it's up and we'll seeyou next time on the dog Who
(34:25):
asked for more. Thank you for listening to the
dog who asked for more and for giving your dog this time
through your learning. If your dog is bouncing off the
walls, no matter how much you walk them, it can feel like
nothing is ever enough. The truth is, most dogs don't
need more exercise. They need the right kind of
enrichment to settle their brains and their bodies.
(34:46):
That's why I put together a freeenrichment resource packed with
easy, fun ideas that you can tryright away.
You'll find the link in the shownotes.
New episodes drop every Monday and Wednesday.
I'll see you next time.
What if your dog had a button totell you what they needed?
Whether it's a bathroom break, attention, or even a life saving
alert? Welcome to the Dog who Asked for
more, the podcast helping dog parents who feel stuck and
overwhelmed by their pup. Finally let go of the guilt.
Learn to communicate clearly andbuild the bond you've always
dreamed of through a partnershipbased approach that combines
(00:22):
training, nutrition and enrichment instead of chasing
the quick fixes that don't actually work.
I'm EM. And in this episode, you'll
learn how one dog named Champ inspired a smart communication
tool that gives pets a voice, why missed cues lead to
frustration and how tech can bridge the gap without replacing
training. And how I Puppy is supporting
(00:44):
everyday pet parents and servicedog handlers around the world.
Today I'm joined by Mark Condon,a husband, father of two,
financial planner, and the accidental inventor of I Puppy,
a smart training button for dogs.
What began as a way for his senior dog Champ, to communicate
his bathroom needs turned into adevice helping pet parents,
service dog handlers, and even medical alert teams stay
(01:07):
connected to their dogs. Mark, let's start with Champ.
Can you share the story of how he inspired the first I Puppy
button? I got Champ when he was 10 weeks
old. I had him since he was a little
puppy, a little over 14 years. And as you said, I'm in financed
by trade and I have a lot of meetings and now everything's
pretty much virtual. And at my previous house, I had
(01:28):
a couch behind me and Champ would always be lying down on
the couch behind me. You'd be falling asleep in the
middle of meetings that you see him making his legs like in the
middle of a meeting like his, like he's chasing a rabbit.
He was a staple for probably five years.
As he aged, his back legs becamevery weak.
And our office was in the basement, so we had to go down
flight of stairs and it just proved to be too difficult for
(01:50):
him. So I carried him up and down the
stairs for about a year just because he wanted to come down.
I wanted him down next to me. I didn't want to leave him on
another floor of the house by himself.
And I just got to a point where his back legs were just so weak
that it just, it didn't make sense for him to come down in
the office with me anymore. So he had a bit on the main
floor of our home, which it killed me.
We weren't side by side. And I wanted a device that could
(02:12):
do two things, either keep an eye on him at any point in time
and just check in. And there's plenty of cameras
out there, plenty of good ones. But more importantly, I want us
away from to notify me if he hadto go to the bathroom.
But a more modern day version than hanging those annoying
bells by the door, right? Because as he got older, the
window of when he could tell youthat he had to go out was just
(02:33):
getting shorter. And I was not being side by side
with him. I wasn't always going to know.
I googled it, I researched and Ijust couldn't believe there
wasn't anything out there where you can just get a push
notification sent to your phone from your dog.
Think of it like a ring doorbellfor your dog.
I just couldn't believe there wasn't wasn't anything out there
like that. So that's where the idea for I
(02:55):
puppy came from. Can't rest in peace, champ.
He, he passed probably 3 months into the process of when we came
up with the idea. It was March and she lasted four
months into the process where wecame up to the idea.
I need to pass. So like I never got a chance to
even try a prototype with him, but you know, as you can tell,
he was a chocolate lab. So as you can tell by the logo,
you know, it's a way to kind of keep champs memory alive.
(03:18):
We always try to throw little, whether it's social media posts
or something, just kind of, you know, to champ as we continue on
this process. What a super neat way to make
your life easier. Make your dog's life easier, but
also give him a way to communicate with you his needs,
especially as he's aging. Aging dogs require so much more
attention. The doorbells on the door.
(03:40):
We used to have those, but I took them off because Fitz would
just like hit them so hard that they would just swing around.
You know, they are, they're annoying.
I think that it's really cool that you could just get a push
notification. And you're right, it is the Ring
doorbell for dogs. What a genius idea.
Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I wonder.
I don't. I probably can't like
copyrighted, say, Ring doorbell for dogs, but that's essentially
(04:02):
like what it is. I don't want Ring to come after
me, but that's essentially what it is.
It's the modern day version of hanging those annoying bells by
the door. You get a push notification sent
to your phone from your dog. I mean, it's, it's, it's pretty
cool. Lot of what we talk about on the
show is communication and understanding our dogs.
So for many of us we miss our dogs subtle cues all the time.
(04:24):
What do you think most pet parents overlook when it comes
to communication with their dog?I mean a lot.
I mean, dogs, they can't talk, right?
There's only so many things thatthey can do.
They can bark, they can whine, they can scratch by the door.
In the pet tech space, people are trying to find ways to just
enrich their dogs lies even moreand have more direct
(04:45):
communication with them. And I think as technologies
comes out, there's so much more that's coming that I think it's
really gonna help people bridge the gap of the communication
with their dog. Even just simple like one
feature of the eye Puppy, which we'll get into at some point is
it was initially created for reaching your neighbors or dog
walkers if you're not home, but you can set it up so multiple
people receive these notifications.
(05:05):
If your dog's sitting there homealone and had to go to the
bathroom, there's really nothingthat you can do, right?
Unless you have an automatic doggie door or just a doggie
door with a fence in the yard, we can let your dog out.
Like there's no way to communicate with with your dog
without something like this. You know, the cameras can only
do so much. You can't really communicate
with your dog, right? But with the eye puppy you can.
And if your dog needs to go to the bathroom and you're not
(05:27):
home, you can set it up so your neighbor, a dog Walker, can come
by and they can let the dog out for you.
So there's just constant communication and you're in a
dog. Whether you're out for a night
or on town running some errands or just away on vacation,
there's always a way to be in touch with your dog.
Communication is just finally starting to hit that level where
people want to have that deeper level of communication and
(05:49):
relationship with their dog. And I agree with you, I think
that there is going to be so much tech coming out in the next
5 to 10 years that's just going to blow us away.
And I can't wait to see what we come up with.
But in the meantime, products like yours really bring us to
the next level. And you have a lot, as you said,
features that I puppy can provide for us.
(06:11):
So tell us about those features.Tell us how it works and all of
the kinds of problems that it can help solve.
Absolutely, Yeah. So when we're first designing
the I Puppy, I still have the initial sketches that we had of
all the different ideas of how we're going to make the product
and how we landed on the one we eventually landed on.
We wanted a product that was a little bit of a raised level, so
(06:31):
it's not super flat and we wanted it on the ground versus
hanging up on a wall. And the part of the reason for
that is we really wanted the camera function of the I Puppy
to be at the front of the unit. There's the 24/7 camera.
It's 160° wide, so it's a prettywide camera.
It's a very nice quality camera too.
We didn't cheap out on that at all.
(06:52):
So that's a huge component to this.
It's got a two way speaker on the unit.
So when you open up the I Puppy app, you can listen in to
whatever's happening in the purview of the room and see
what's happening. And you can hold down the
microphone. You can talk into your phone and
it comes out with the speaker onthe side of the unit so your dog
can hear your voice. It has motion detection, so you
(07:12):
can set the sensitivity of that whether you want it to go off,
you know, pretty, pretty easily with something light, even just
like a like sometimes when I'm at home and though there's wind
and the leaves are blowing around in the, in the windows,
you it'll go off. You can set it how sensitive or
touchy you want that to be. And then anytime the motion
sensor goes off, you get a 10 second video playback so you can
(07:34):
see what's going on when that occurred.
And one of the most important features that we'll get into,
which initially I had said was created for neighbors and dog
walkers is inviting multiple people to receive that
notification. And we live in a townhouse
community at the time when we thought of this.
So I said, oh, it'd be great if my neighbors who worked tight
knit community people in apartment buildings, your
neighbor could come let your dogout for you.
(07:55):
That one feature alone has changed our marketing and our
focus for 90% of what we focus on with I puppy and that is the
service dock space. So somebody reached out, it's me
about last summer saying, hey, can I use this for an emergency?
My mom recently had her legs amputated.
She's in a wheelchair, and she has a service dog.
(08:17):
And if she falls off, I would love for my dog to be able to
press the button and notify me for an emergency.
My simple brain, I didn't even, it never even occurred to me.
I was just like, mind blown. I was yeah, like, absolutely.
I was like, holy, This all of a sudden is like a medical life
alert system for service dog handlers.
And I struggled with really where to focus the marketing
(08:39):
where there's other buttons out there, the talking buttons.
They've done a very good job marketing and they have a very
big community. So it's a very wide market for
potty training and train your dog to press a button for
whatever it is they want. But then we also have this
service dog space where this could literally at some point I
puppy will save a life. It's inevitable that it's going
to happen on the potty training side.
(09:00):
It's a it's a nice to have. It's not a necessity.
Whereas on the service dog space, it is more of a
necessity. And you talk about the dogs.
I mean, they can, they can pressa button in two seconds, right?
The train, they already have so much training that it's very
simple for them to pick up that cue.
Whereas the everyday pet parent might bring it to a trainer and
the trainer can say, hey, I've trained your dog.
Press the button when I feel thebathroom.
(09:21):
Use the eye puppy. Or if you're training it
yourself, the average pet parent, let's be honest, they
might just get lazy after a weekand just say, my dog can't do
it. They're too stupid.
And at the end of the day, it's up to the individual.
They have to train the dog to doit.
The dog wants to learn, they want to be enriched, they want
to learn how to do it, but you have to train it.
When we got our inventory right at the end of 24, we really put
a big focus on just the service dog space.
(09:42):
Really just trying to niche downand kind of become the go to
product for that type of a situation and really own that
space for lack of better words. And it's really, it's really
been a big move to focus on that.
I went to the Assistance Dog International Conference in
Orlando, FL in March and that was my really my first venture
into a service dog space. Now remember, I come from
(10:03):
finance. I have no dog training
experience whatsoever. I have even less service dog
experience, Zero. And I somehow stumbled into the
service dog space. I know nothing about this space.
So going into ADI in March, I had no idea what to expect
entering a space where I know nothing about it.
Essentially, I'm just trying to to convey where I probably can
(10:23):
fit and it's amazing what happens when you find your
clientele like the right people.Everyone said how amazing it was
since that conference, there's Lions hearing dogs in Australia
that they have about 30 units out there themselves that that
they purchased. We're in Lithuania, we're in
Switzerland. All this came from this, that
ADI conference and we have some really good partnerships and
(10:46):
collaborations with service dog organizations all over the
United States. It's been kind of mind blowing
where it's taken us, you know, from a simple concept of my 14
year old chocolate lab having togo to the bathroom to now in the
service dock space. So it's it's been a pretty cool
evolution, if you will, of just I puppy in general.
What a cool thing that you have,something that a wide variety of
(11:08):
people can use, but that it can do something that is also very
specific. If that's what it needs to be,
that's innovative, and there could be so many different
things. I'm sure people will write in
and say, well, what if we did this instead?
Or what if we did this instead? Or could I train my dog to use
it for this? What a great thing.
Just so many iterations that youcould come up with from this.
(11:31):
And you're right, yeah, a service dog doesn't need to be
trained how to hit a button. They'll figure it out.
I mean, of course, they have to make the association between if
something's happening to handlerhit the button so that 911 is
called or a family member is called or, or whatever it is in
that case, versus I need to go to the bathroom and the random
gamble of who's going to come lock me.
(11:51):
And that. I mean, but that's totally fine
though too, because you're stillserving the needs of a dog,
which is something that I don't think a lot of people really
cared about until the last few years.
We're worried about what the dogs need versus how we expect
them to live within our world, which is such a cool thing.
Yeah, it's really cool. And just see all the other tech
(12:12):
products out there. You like GPS callers that are
out there. There's a there's a few popular
ones and it's just amazing what people can do in the tech space
now that growing up myself, nothing was out there.
And I can't even imagine what's going to be out in 5 to 10
years. I mean, we'll probably be on I
puppy 3 to version three or fouror five.
At that point. There's already some updates and
changes we want to make to it with the app development and
(12:34):
we're talking to our app developers now.
But 5-10 years from now, I can'teven imagine what version we're
going to be on of I Puppy and that kind of how it's evolved.
I would love to have a two way video.
We talk about two way audio. Imagine I'm in a two way video
with, you know, that the paw maybe comes up and it's like
it's your video playing back. I don't know, something like
that. And and still I want to
incorporate it with one of thosedoggy doors.
(12:55):
I think my queue is a pretty bigcompany where the dog has to go
to the bathroom. If you have a doggy door or any
door, you can remotely let your dog out straight from the I
puppy. Yeah.
And the the door opens, you can just let your dog out there.
So you don't even need a neighbor, a dog Walker.
There's so many applications that this could evolve into.
And a lot of people are reachingout.
Even a friend of mine and their grandmother, she's as a like a,
(13:18):
an aide at the house. And she's like, it would be
great if she could even just press the button if she fell or
something. And it was like like a life a
little like, yeah, but what if like, what if she's not wearing
it or something? Or what if like, I don't know,
like there's just so many applications that you could use
where people and senior citizenscan use it to reach their
emergency contacts or something.What happened to them?
But it doesn't have to be the dog.
My 4 year old daughter, she she pressed the button when she has
(13:40):
to get out of the bed in the morning.
She can't leave her room until she calls mommy and daddy
through the eye puppy. We're getting away from the dog
space, but it's just kind of cool all the different
applications that people are thinking of using iPod before.
So it's kind of like echo what you had mentioned, there's just
so many different iterations. Yeah, I know.
I and I don't think it's bad thing to get away from the dog
space. Like I said, you've created
something that can be used for multiple different things.
(14:02):
And again, a little bit of curativity and curiosity goes a
long way. And if your device supports it
and it helps somebody out, that's really all that matters.
Yeah, for sure. And it's just, I think it's just
a matter of time before we see all these other applications
iterations come to fruition withit.
But yeah, the, the dog training,puppy potty training, mostly in
the service tech space are definitely the two that we're
(14:23):
focusing on now. We've had some some good
conversations with some partnerships and collaborations.
We'll see how they come to fruition.
As you know, I went to Super Zooin August.
We got some good conversations going there.
I think we're about to be on Wolf's, the Wolf's app, which is
great. We're just now on Doggo, the
doggo training app, which is great.
Closing 2025 and heading into 26.
(14:45):
I think we have some really goodpartnerships and opportunities
coming, so pretty excited. The way that, like we said,
technology is moving, there's just going to be continued
advancements and ideas and placement for your product.
What role do you see technology playing in supporting, not
replacing, training and enrichment?
I'd think it's huge. Just all these other different
(15:07):
companies. This isn't so much tech, but I
was thinking like swift paws, they had like all this like the
training that they have with swift paws.
Like I just think technology in general is a lot of people think
it's going to replace a lot of different jobs and think of
technology and AI think it's it's going to supplement a lot.
And I think even something like I puppy, like you might miss a
bell. Everyone's got their phone on
(15:28):
them these days. You're not going to miss a
notification pop up on your phone.
You're just you're not going to do it.
Everyone's attached to the phone.
So I think that going back to the callers, I think the callers
are huge. I just think the evolution of
technology is just really going to help everyone bring
themselves closer to their dogs.We are big fans of swift paws at
our house. It combines all of the things
that we need in one area. We're training the dog to do
(15:51):
something new, but we're enriching their life by giving
them a fun activity and we're supporting, like you said, that
energy burn get helping them getthat out because I have a dog
that's like woo woo woo all the time and that really helps.
So it makes in my day easier because I can maybe answer
emails and push the button to make the course run at the same
(16:12):
time versus trying to stumble around the yard answering emails
and throwing, throwing a ball atthe same time.
There's just so much that we cando to really give our dogs
better activities with just minor adjustments and
technology. People do get a little bit
afraid of technology advancing to a certain point and maybe
(16:32):
taking over jobs and certain things, but at the same time it
really does help make our lives a lot more livable and give many
benefits to kids and dogs and people in general.
For sure. I mean, you go back 25 years
when the Internet was really cool coming out, people thought
it was going to replace all these jobs that, Can you imagine
the world without the Internet these days?
Everything you do is on the Internet.
(16:53):
I mean, Facebook's only 25 yearsold and it's just like your cell
phone, the smartphone technologyin general is it's going to
supplement and, and help you more so than take over certain
jobs. And you know, it goes back to
dog training and such, like it's, it's a supportive tool for
you to help in a day-to-day with, with your dog.
Like you said, you're pressing abutton while your dog is getting
(17:13):
the energy they need, while you're just sitting in the, you
know, the comfort of your home is sending an e-mail, which is
going out for an hour long walk,right?
And then even other like talkingbuttons, you know, I know
technically they're somewhat of a competitor of ours, but
they're, they're creating this communication and like enriching
dogs to learn how to press certain buttons.
And it's super helpful. It's like really cool to watch
(17:35):
what dogs can do. With and dogs have brains and
people forget that helping dogs think and make choices and do
different things is really, really beneficial for them and
it gives them something that they don't normally get out of
their day-to-day life. You know, most people just say,
oh, my dog's fine. They can hang out on the couch
all day or they can do this or that.
(17:57):
But I would be really, really bored if I had to sit on a couch
all day and do nothing. So it'd be really neat to see
down the road and iteration of IPuppy where you can play like a
game with it or something and teach your dog, you know, like
some kind of interactive thing. That'd be really fun, I think
that. 'D be really cool.
That might be version like 5 point O, but I think that's
(18:17):
definitely something that we canincorporate down the line.
You mentioned that I Puppy has gained traction with the service
dog community. Can you share another story
where it's made an impact with the listeners?
Yeah, I know a couple things. So on the service dog space,
like there was one individual, I'm sure you've heard of her,
Jamie Simpson. Her Instagram is embracing Echo.
She's a personal friend. Oh, Jimmy's Jimmy is one of the
(18:39):
nicest people like I've ever hadthe pleasure of meeting and we
missed her at super zoo. But she's an incredible person
to even have the bravery to share the story to share her
story story publicly. But you know you just she's used
I puppy and you see it in some of the the videos and echo this
famous video was jumping over this couch like a superhero and
(19:01):
pressing the button. But even just like seeing her
husband get a phone call with the I puppy, I mean, it's just
like it's wild. There's a organization down in
Texas called a Patriot Pause. And they have some incredible
stories that they're doing with some of their veterans with PTSD
and loss of limbs. They have some stories that
they're working on right now with incorporating the I puppy.
(19:24):
It's really just been incredibleto see.
But we get we get emails constantly.
Just one woman. She's like, I'm 70 and I I'm
like, I'm at home with Ms. with,with my dog.
She just ordered an I puppy 2 days ago.
She's like, this is going to be such a lifesaver for me because
I, I don't have any other way toreach my emergency contacts if
something were to happen to me. At the end of the day, people
want to be able to live, you know, independently.
(19:46):
It's really encouraging when I get random emails like that from
from people and I don't know howthey found this, whether it's a
search, whether it's through social media or what, but it's
really, it's really encouraging to get these types of emails
from people just because everybody they just want to have
be able to have the independenceand the Peace of Mind to just
like be alone without the fear of something happening and not
be able to reach their emergencycontacts or something.
(20:07):
As far as other personal storieslike.
There's there's a dozen of them.They all kind of blend together
because they're all kind of similar but a little different
in their own right. But it's just that we get a
constant flow of females with usfor people sharing their story.
Cool thing to get to be part of people's personal stories like
that without even being there. You get to help them in a way
that they were not able to have some form of communication in
(20:31):
order to cause the falling story.
I have a grandma, she is in an assisted living facility now but
she fell before and she didn't have her little medallion on her
to push the button to to call. Now she doesn't have a dog so it
probably maybe wouldn't work forher.
But if she had one and it was onthe floor and it was closer for
her to be able to get that's I could see where that will
(20:53):
definitely help. And you're right, one day this
will save someone's life. It absolutely will, and probably
more than one life. For sure, yeah.
And it's just, it's just wild tothink of that.
Yeah. It's just like, it's it's still
obviously I don't want it to, you know what I mean?
Like, I don't like, it'll be, it'll be cool to hear that it
did. But like, it's even like, that's
such a scary situation for that individual.
(21:15):
But I'm glad to be able to provide the Peace of Mind that
it can eventually save a life. It's like getting life
insurance. You never want to, you know, you
get it, I hope, and you never need it.
You know what I mean? It's it's really cool to be able
to create a product that can have this type of an impact on a
space that I frankly knew nothing about even like 18
months ago. It's wild how just a small idea
can turn into something so big. And like I said, I think that
(21:37):
you're going to find a lot more things that it can do for other
people. You know, your founder story,
It's it's kind of a scrappy founder story.
What do you think the hardest part of taking this personal
solution to a startup was? I have no background in any of
this. So oddly enough, I think I
mentioned, I mentioned you, I used to notice the podcast
(21:57):
called Boston's Best and episode85.
There's this company called 52 Launch help you bring your idea
to life. And they were two miles down the
street from my house. I never heard of them before and
got introduced to them by somebody else that used that.
And I said, wow, that's really cool.
I always love the idea of Shark Tank and like entrepreneurs and
bringing like a dream to reality, if you will.
And you know, we're going back and forth and ideas and, and I
(22:19):
puppy came up. So I hired them.
So what they do is they have a team of engineers that help you
design and talk through what youwant, the features and such.
And so they're essentially like the middleman between yourself
and manufacturer. They have great relationships,
ships with manufacturers. So I used them and their team
and we went back and forth and all these ideas of and
iterations of how to create the I puppy.
(22:40):
I still remember the first 3D print.
It's in my house somewhere and from there we made this overseas
and the difficulty there is the language barrier more or less
right. So like I'm communicating with
the third party, 52 launches, then communicating with the
manufacturer who if they have follow up questions goes back to
52 launch, then it goes back to me and they don't fully
(23:00):
understand everything that we'reasking for.
So that the hardest part was really the patience on creating
the product that we wanted because you know, they're just
looking to create a product and create a bunch of them and kind
of get paid. Whereas I want a product that
I'm not forgetting anything. You know, if I'm going to commit
to creating a product like this,like I want to make sure it has
every feature that we can possibly think of.
And with that being said, there's a couple that we didn't
(23:22):
think of that'll be on the next,hopefully the app update.
The manufacturing is incredibly long process, the shipping
really just the timeline and very much underestimated the
time that it took us over 2 1/2 years from idea to actually have
the first shipment of inventory here in Boston, MA.
It took almost three years, a few months shy at three years.
So the timeline took a took a very long time and you know, I
(23:46):
don't know anything. I just stumbled like into
creating a product and I'm not an engineer, you know, I come up
with ideas like, well, you can'tmanufacture that, that's
impossible. So OK, well, how do we do it?
Like so like learning that wholeprocess was a very big
undertaking. And then when you get the
product, you got to make sure that the back end of the
business is up and running. So like ones the website insight
(24:06):
to the social media to people signing up for, you know, potty
training checklist or service dog checklist.
You got to make sure all those e-mail sequences lined up
correctly and they're flowing ina certain way.
Even stuff like that. When you start a business, all
these other things that I had absolutely no idea about.
Starting a business is insanely difficult because you got to
make sure all the pieces connecteven before you have a finished
(24:29):
product, because if you want people to sign up for pre-orders
and such, you got to make sure that everything lines up and
flows correctly. And you got to, you got to have
ACRM, you got a way to track allof it.
It's really cool, but it's not for the faint of heart.
It's, it's, it takes so much time and effort.
I completely underestimate how long it was going to take and
the effort. I was like, oh, it'll be cool to
have like a brand product to life.
(24:49):
And there's so much more that went into it.
I mean, I'm usually awake and this is by no means like a badge
of honor. I'm usually up around 2:00 in
the morning and I'm working on Ipuppy from like 2:30 to probably
6 before my kids wake up. And then it's like breakfast,
daddy time, daycare drop off. And I have a full time job.
So I'm doing that, you know, more or less from 9:00 to 5:00
(25:11):
fitting in as much I puppy stuffas possible, like randomly
throughout the day and you have daycare picked up and you get
bedtime and you get dinner time and story time.
It's just like the only time that I have is like the those
wee hours in the morning when noone's up where I can really
focus. Like I said, it's not for the
faint of heart, but we have a mission and like it's very clear
and we have product now. Like it took almost three years
(25:31):
to get to this point now, like now's the time and they just,
you know, you got to make it happen.
So it's, I don't know if I answered your question.
That was the long winded answer,I guess of starting a business
and the challenges. But there's just, there's so
many and you can't, you have no idea what to, you can't plan for
it. You have no idea, like what to
expect. I don't know, like I've used
(25:52):
Chachi BT to build code on my website.
Chachi PT has been like my best friend because I don't know, I
have no idea how to do that. And I've learned a ton.
But it's just, yeah, there's so much that goes into it and it's
really rewarding. Now at this point, somebody in
Montana bought 4 of them the other day today.
We're now in Lithuania. She just bought 3 Somebody in
Lithuania ring like it's just like we're in we're currently in
(26:12):
nine different countries. So it's like it's like cool to
actually finally see it coming to fruition.
I don't know how you're just piece mailing 27 things together
at any certain time, but it's. Yeah, pretty cool.
Well, first of all, I can attestto that you are up at crazy
hours because you and I exchanged some emails and some
very crazy hours. So I live that life too.
(26:33):
Yeah, I, I, I'm usually like scheduling emails for like 6:00
AM so people don't think I'm like some crazy nut job.
But there's some people. In my case, she doesn't care.
Might be up you got to do it when you have time to do it.
I have the same thing, you know,I've got a lot going on and, and
running more than one business and it, it really can get a lot
going on your plate and it's just, it can be very
overwhelming. And yeah, it does take time.
(26:54):
I'm, I'm super there on the timeline thing.
I, I've learned very much how tobe patient because of my dog and
because of this podcast. So I, I totally get that.
I totally get that. And ChatGPT has also become a
really good resource for me. It always amazes me how much I
don't know. Yeah, like so for me, same.
I don't have this marketing brain.
(27:16):
Like I'm very much what's the analytical side, left brain, I
think, right. I'm very much the analytical
side. And when it comes to creatives
and stuff like that, like I throw it in a championship team,
like give me like 12 examples ofwhat you think would work in
this type of a situation. I'm usually blending them
together, but it gets my creative juices flowing.
So going back to the tech of just helping you and supporting
(27:38):
you, that is something that I'd be months behind if I didn't
have something like PPT. Even like little tweaks on the
website like Shopify, like move some stuff around.
Like where is this located? 4 seconds I found I knew where
it was located. I'm sure Google could have done
it too, but like, it's just, they're two different types of
animals. But yeah, it's, it's helped me
tremendously just on different certain, certain aspects.
(27:59):
I use it a lot of times for likeidea generating and you know
ideas for website copy and stuff.
For sure. Do you have an I puppy with you?
I do, I do you. Want to show what it looks like
and and kind of explain how it works a little bit.
Sure, Yeah. So this is the I puppy.
So it's a plug in unit. And the reason for that is 24/7
(28:19):
camera feed. So a battery would just, it
would just kill the camera, would kill the battery.
If it was battery only, I would kind of defeat the purpose for a
lot, especially the service dog space.
People use it as a lifeline typeof switch search situation.
So it's a pretty big button. It only takes a half a pound of
pressure. I've had a dog as small as 4 lbs
press the eye puppy, which was apretty big feat.
(28:40):
And when the dog presses the button, I don't know people
would be or hear this, but it makes a little noise when dogs
press the button. And then when they do, you get a
push notification sent to your phone.
So on my phone, I have a push notification from ipuppy that
pops up and when I open it up, it takes you right to the ipuppy
app. And then I have Face ID set up.
And then when you open up the notification, it takes you right
(29:03):
to a video call with your dog essentially.
So you answer it, want to mute it because they're right next to
each other. So it's like bouncing back and
forth when you answer it. So you're literally receiving a
video call from your dog. This is the camera.
And then you know from here you can screenshot photos, record
videos, there's the two way speaker.
And then within the settings youcan set up the motion alert and
(29:24):
invite family and friends and such.
That's what it looks like. You won't get a notification on
your phone. You open it up, it takes you
right to the camera right at thefront of the unit.
So you're literally getting a video call from your dog.
It comes with four anti scratch pads in the back of the unit and
we also provide 2 uses of doublesided 3 M tape.
So if people wanted to have it amore firmly on the floor they
can do that. I put on both hardwood and tile
(29:45):
for a month in my house and it didn't scratch up or leave any
marks on the floor. But I thought we've had £130
Newfoundland not be able to moveit, which was like a pretty big
test. You don't have to stick it down
somewhere but if you wanted to leave it firmly in place you
could. And it's not going to scuff up
your floors or anything like that.
Just connects directly to your Wi-Fi.
You download the ipuppy app, youregister your e-mail address,
and then you add, go to. There's a plus sign.
(30:07):
You add an Ipuppy, the unit you put in your Wi-Fi network, and
there's a QR code that pops up on your phone and then the
camera at the front of the unit scans the QR code.
You know, within 30 to 60 seconds you're connected to your
Wi-Fi. The whole thing should take you
less than less than 5 minutes, probably just a couple minutes
to actually set up so. I have a question for you.
Based on that, it notifies somebody, right?
You get the push notification ifsomebody doesn't respond in like
(30:31):
a certain amount of time, does it?
Try somebody else? So no, you can set up so three
different people receive that notification.
So each, each time the buttons pressed, a push notification
gets sent out to the three emergency contacts that you got
set up. So the difference between this
and like when I think there's another button, like a big
(30:51):
yellow one that will go to person #2 if person #1 doesn't
answer that is different becauseit's a landline.
But like, they're the interface between an app and a landline.
They're just two completely different types of interfaces.
So this is just like any other notification that you get on
your phone, whether it's a text message or Facebook notification
(31:14):
e-mail, it pops up on your phonethat way.
And if the dog presses it multiple times, there'll be
multiple notifications that pop OK.
Cool, cool, very cool. Yeah, and it doesn't go, it does
not connect to I'd say all but one person we spoke to, like
thousands of people said they don't want it to go to 911
because most of the time it's not an emergency.
So they figure, you know, you saw how quickly I received.
(31:36):
I mean, my phone's right here, but you'll get the you get an
alert within 510 seconds into your phone.
And from there, people can probably quit pretty quickly.
Determine if you need not after Super Zoo.
I met the head of the tech department at Chewy and as of
yesterday, we are officially live on Chewy, which is a
pretty, pretty big deal. So we're pretty excited about
(31:56):
that. So you can check us out on our
website. That's incredible.
And that is a big deal. And this show is called The Dog
Who Asked for More and Champ whoreally asked you for more, And
he helped you eliminate the guesswork out of what he needed.
As he got older, he asked for more communication, more clarity
and more dignity. What did listening to him teach
(32:17):
you about the way dogs ask us for or more?
Man, I mean, after so many years, you can usually just look
at your dog. It's like a it's like a spouse
like you know exactly what it isthat they want when they're just
looking at you. But I would say the hard part
with him as he really like declined.
He didn't always know when he had to go to the bathroom in
time. And I think like that was like
(32:38):
the most difficult part of understanding exactly what he
needed. I think I puppies just, yeah,
I'm like an emotional thing about it.
But I thought it was just like another way that if he had stuck
around would have been another way for him to tell me like what
he wanted and just like help with that communication piece
because like, you just see the look in his eyes.
Definitely give your dog some grace.
(33:00):
And yeah. And dignity like you.
Said yeah, dignity be there for them.
Yeah, absolutely. If you could give one small
challenge to the person listening right now, whether it
be in life or with their dog, what would it be?
Spend more time with your dog. Go for that extra to walk.
Don't be lazy. Don't just sit around on the
couch. Get an eye puppy, get a swift
pause. Give them the energy like your
(33:22):
dog needs all this energy. They're not just something
that's just going to like you said, laying around bored on a
couch all day. They want to do stuff like take
the time. Just get do something with your
dog. I don't care how cold it is.
I walked champ when it was like 6° outside, not for long because
it's like the rock salt that they sprayed around in my
neighborhood would like hurt hispaws.
I put like stuff on his feet. Just spend more time with your
(33:42):
dog. Like you don't know if you have
six years or 14 years with them.So like my challenge to you is
just like, get your dog outside today.
Get them something. It could just be like a little
licky mat. Get them something that's going
to enrich them. Do something for your dog today.
That is a super excellent message.
I absolutely love that. Now that you know about I Puppy,
you can go check it out for yourself.
(34:04):
Make sure you check Chewy and check out I Puppy's website For
more information. And of course, there will
probably be a discount code, so don't hesitate to ask for that
if you don't see in the show notes.
And remember, be kind, spread joy and spend the time with your
dog before it's up and we'll seeyou next time on the dog Who
(34:25):
asked for more. Thank you for listening to the
dog who asked for more and for giving your dog this time
through your learning. If your dog is bouncing off the
walls, no matter how much you walk them, it can feel like
nothing is ever enough. The truth is, most dogs don't
need more exercise. They need the right kind of
enrichment to settle their brains and their bodies.
(34:46):
That's why I put together a freeenrichment resource packed with
easy, fun ideas that you can tryright away.
You'll find the link in the shownotes.
New episodes drop every Monday and Wednesday.
I'll see you next time.
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