Petcube: Watch and Play With Your Pet While You're Away

You hate leaving your pet at home but you have to go to work or school. Enter Petcube, a home gadget that lets you stay close to your furry friend even when you're away. Equipped with a wide angle camera, microphone, speakers, and laser pointer, the sleek aluminum and glass cube enables you to watch, talk, and play with your pet remotely using the accompanying mobile app.

About 20 percent of Americans leave their TV on to keep their pets entertained while they're not at home. Petcube offers a more personalized, interactive alternative. Exercise your pet using the safe, low-intensity laser pointer; call them when they are out of sight; and capture and share photos and videos of them – all in real time.

In addition, you can access public Petcubes and play with other pets and talk with the owners. The Petcube team is aiming to get some Petcubes into animal shelters as well, so orphaned animals can join in on the fun and maybe even get adopted.

The Pet Industry’s Most Innovative Business: Zoom Room

Is your dog your best friend? If so, then you must be willing to invest in its health. A small company, Zoom Room, is one of the best places dog owners can rely on to keep their pet’s wellness at optimum levels. The fastest-growing pet franchise in America, Zoom Room is the only brick-and-mortar dog-training establishment in the country. It is also the first dog agility franchise in the world.

The company specializes in dog agility training, using the latest equipment and techniques in canine physical exercise. In every franchise, weave poles, A-frames, jumps, teeter totters, tunnels, dog agility walks, and more custom-designed dog agility equipment, are used by trainers. Dogs of any breed, size, and age are welcome to these classes, as well as their owners.

In addition to dog agility, Zoom Room also offers dog obedience training, therapy dog training, dog tricks training, and even puppy preschool. They employ innovative, advanced dog training classes for dogs who need special attention such as Shy Dog class, which is perfect for rescue dogs, and Calm Down! class for hyperactive pups.

The company also allows pet owners to bond with their dogs by teaching them techniques to make their dogs physically upbeat and mentally alert. The “perfect pet franchise” does not simply train dogs. They also train the people who love and care for them.

Zoom Room’s fun, incredibly affordable, and unique approach to business made them one of the top seven small, innovative businesses in 2010. If that’s not enough, the company is also entirely run by an iPad.  Each dog has a unique bar code which is scanned into their system using the iPad, much like a regular gym. This way, all information about a particular dog, including updates on its progress, can be easily retrieved.

The pet industry has yet to see another business as innovative as Zoom Room.