by Kerry McKinney, DVM

We use many apps in our daily lives. Social media, banking, entertainment, you name it… there are even apps to help us take care of our pets. Read on to learn about a few pet apps that you may find useful.

“Was that safe to eat?”

At Ann Arbor Animal Hospital ER, we field a lot of calls about pets who have eaten human medications or helped themselves to a bowl of grapes, trail mix with raisins or macadamia nuts, xylitol-containing gum, or brownies (both regular and the THC-containing sort). Most pet owners know these items can be dangerous or deadly to pets and the ingestion is rarely intentional.

Thankfully, calls regarding owners who have purposefully given their pets human medications or dangerous foods are less common. And now there’s a new app created by a veterinarian to help pet owners make informed decisions before sharing. Dr. Mari Delaney, a graduate of Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, created this resource following a case of Aleve poisoning.

The Bad Human, No! app allows owners to bypass the internet’s abundant but often poorly-curated data and quickly access information on specific items. It tells what human medications and foods are safe. Plus, it tells what signs and veterinary costs to expect if your pet’s eaten the wrong thing.

Bad Human, No! is available for $3.99 on the App Store and Google Play.

Track your diabetic pet’s insulin level

The AlphaTRAK glucometer is a device specifically calibrated for cats and dogs to provide accurate blood glucose measurements. And Merck, the manufacturer of veterinary-specific Vetsulin, has an app that aids diabetes management by tracking meal and insulin dose times, behavior, and blood glucose measurements.

The Pet Diabetes Tracker is a free app, available for iOS on the App Store and Android on Google Play.

Tick ID & Real Time Tracking

If you’d like specific information on the blood-thirsty critters attaching themselves to you and your pets, read Dr. Taryn Clark’s recent blog and try The Tick App website. This site has information on identifying tick species and their own app that allows tick activity reporting by state. Join other citizen scientists and help researchers from Columbia University, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the CDC Regional Centers for Excellence in Vector-Borne diseases monitor tick populations and activity.

The Tick App can be found for free on the App Store for iOS devices and on Google Play for Android.