Subscription Facts and Other Goodies About Fit Pets for Rescues™
What is it?
Healthy Pet Connect is a free pet healthcare app that offers monthly subscriptions for long term care (weight management, diabetes, osteoarthritis, IBD/lymphoma and MANY others) A veterinary dashboard is provided to the pet parents' veterinarian when a subscription is purchased which allows telemonitoring which provides real time data transfer and prevents unneeded visits and increases accessibility. The pet parent’s veterinarian makes all decisions based on the pet parents' data. Alert flags to both pet parent and veterinarian are consistent with recommendations from board certified veterinary nutritionists and published peer reviewed guidelines.
What are the benefits to my pet?
The value of a pet at healthy weight is invaluable in terms of preventing health problems and increasing longevity. The 2002 Purina study (Kealy et al) showed ideal weight dogs lived 15% longer than those that were overfed. That same study has been repeated in almost every species. Reducing visits to the veterinarian, the associated costs of obesity, preventing diabetes or other diseases is our focus. Precise monitoring of diabetes, hyperthyroidism, CKD and other diseases becomes seamless with the HPC platform. Seeing a frail pet gain weight or an overweight pet lose that feels better & lives longer is our passion!
What does the subscription provide?
The subscription provides veterinary tele-monitoring using our connected body weight and food scale and measuring system and an accurate body scale for pets less than 40#. Dogs larger than that can use a bathroom scale, your veterinarian’s scale. Other validated, pet friendly devices are being added to our store monthly. As an HPC subscriber you get 10% of al items our Marketplace store all have been handpicked for being effective, validated & pet friendly!
How much does it cost?
The preventive pet health app and veterinary dashboard are both free. Subscriptions for weight management, medical, osteoarthritis, and frailty range from $9.95/mo to $29.95/mo and are available for 1,3,6 or 12 months. Our connected body weight scale is just $99 plus shipping & handling. 5% of every subscription goes to the rescues. Preventing just one veterinary visit per year would pay for your subscription!
What pets/households does it work for?
All pets can benefit by using the HPC platform. Timely medication reminders, reminders to weigh your pet and record videos and upload photos that can be helpful for the veterinary team all help to provide precision weight management, long term & preventive care.
What technology is used?
The scales that we use are 20x more accurate than the typical human bathroom scale. Our food scales and feeding/measuring system ensures accurate measuring & food delivery if our detailed but easy to follow approach is used. Reliable pet-limited feeders (microchip or RFID) are vital to ensure no food sharing/stealing in multiple pet households and are available in our marketplace. Our subscription app/portal is designed to handle new devices in an open-source environment. Webcams & activity monitors can be used in special circumstances too.
How well does it work for weight management?
Our publication in a peer reviewed veterinary journal where the technology assisted group (scales, smart feeders, activity monitors and webcams) lost 4x as much weight as those that did not use technology in multiple cat households so if the technology setup is followed closely results should be excellent. We have had Spudgie, an overweight rescue cat in Bug’s Cat Gym loose over 24 lbs. in just 17 months at a rate of over a 1% average weekly weight loss. He started at 37# and now weighs 12.5# (no, there are no typos here!) Currently, Patches a 42# cat has lost 12# and is on our monitoring system.
Does the app work for both Android and Apple?
Yes! We currently use a web/app which works equally well on a desktop or mobile device. It allows very quick evolution and allows us to keep our costs down. When we migrate to Apple/Google stores in 1st Qtr 2024 our scales will be blue-tooth connected and we will be able to do push notifications.
Why does it work better than other weight management systems?
By strict measuring and regular home weight entries into our Healthy Pet Connect app adjustments in intake can be made weekly, instead of having to wait for annual, semiannual or even monthly veterinary clinic visits. Our peer reviewed published study showed 4X better outcomes using home health technology and that was without an app & dashboard. We work directly with your veterinarian to insure safe, effective weight loss using only pet friendly products and research proven devices.
What else do I need to know?
Fit Pets for Rescues© will donate a portion of your subscription each month to rescues for every month you stay enrolled to achieve or maintain ideal weight for your pet. Fit Pets for Rescues Weight Management Programs has been monitoring pet weight loss for over 11 years enrolling hundreds of pets and donating over $25,000 to local Madison rescues. (See testimonials on our home page!) We are now delighted to share our success to help your pet and the donations to a rescue local to you.
How well does the equipment work?
The feeders and scale both got very high ratings (Net Promoter Score) in a scientifically controlled study and questionnaire in our study published in Oct 2021 They are durable and simple to use. Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) was measured and actually increased using our technology in our 12 week study. What does that mean exactly? It was pet friendly and worked for both pets & pet parents!
Anything else it can do?
We are very excited to be in discussions with wearable, pet food, pharmaceutical companies to partner in "soft" research that can be done in the comfort of a pet's home environment. Any veterinarian using the HPC platform will be first on our our list to do wearable/food/drug studies all very pet friendly of course. Stay tuned for exciting details.
How will this help my veterinarian?
,As most/all veterinarians are currently overburdened with cases our platform comes at a critical juncture for the profession. We are tele-monitoring so can function in every state & country legally sidestepping a VCPR and simply allowing an easy data flow from pet to vet. We have shown this improves outcomes while saving veterinary team time and preventing errors in data transmission. Long-term care requires a great deal of the veterinary team's time. There is so much valuable information that could be shared from the home that could be vital that was previously unavailable, until now.