Animal-loving Britons will spend more than £250m on their pets this Christmas. Marie Carter, editor of Pets Magazine, looks at what is available for tiddles and fido

The Northern Echo: HEART MURMUR: Marie Carter with her King Charles cocker spaniel Sophie. Picture: STUART BOULTON

INNOVATIONS in technology are giving us the kind of capabilities that used to be more science fiction than fact, and these days our pets can benefit too.

The market for pet tech is huge, and growing year on year. Pet lovers in the UK plash out more than £6bn on their animals; that's an increase of 25pc since 2010, according to Euromonitor. In the UK, 8.5m people own dogs and 7.4m own cats while 45 million US households own dogs, and 30 million households own cats. Increased ‘humanisation’ of our pets, particularly among single Millennials and older couples without dependent children, has seen a huge increase in demand for pet care, pet accessories and now pet tech.

Earlier this year, in my capacity as Editor of Pets Magazine, I was delighted to visit Whistle in San Francisco, a brilliant company that started only four years ago with a team of three and has now grown to 65 people. It makes pet activity and sleep trackers, some of which have GPS functionality.

Whistle makes an excellent app and my little Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Sophie now has an active profile after exceeding her 45-minute daily exercise regime. Cleverly, the app distinguishes between different forms of activity - such as running, walking and playing and does not include activities like walking around the house or a stroll of under a few minute’s duration.

There are many more exciting developments in wearable technology for our pets and innovative products for pet owners including GPS collars, trackers, cameras, and even 3D pet sculptures, and here’s a rundown of the best.

We never want to lose our dog so if this is something you’re worried about there are a wide range of smart collars and trackers emerging on the wearable market to keep you connected to yours. Some trackers also have smart features to help keep your pet healthy too.

If you want to keep an eye on your dog’s actions, GoPro (https://gopro.com) has a wearable strap called GoPro Fetch for its action camera that can be worn around your dog’s chest or on its back.

The harness is designed to fit dogs between 7kg and 54kg and supports GoPro Hero cameras, which sold separately. By attaching the camera you can see your dog bone chewing and digging and see overhead shots of your pooch running and jumping.

The GoPro Fetch is machine washable and rugged so you don’t have to worry about your dog getting carried away in the puddles.

3D Pet Sculptures are providing people with a unique memento of their beloved pet or a gift for a pet owner. Arty Lobster (https://artylobster.com) helps people remember their pets by creating extraordinarily life-like 3D printed sculptures.

Arty Lobster creates the hi-tech sculptures from around ten pictures of a dog or another pet which the owner uploads to the company’s website.

The result is a perfect little replica of the pet, which captures even small variations in fur colour and other characteristics.

Pod Pet Tracker (https://www.podtrackers.com), available from Pod Trackers, which is the size of a cork and weighs just 29 grams, is cylindrical and can be strapped onto a pet to track its movements. Its genesis started over a year ago, when Sebastian Langton lost his best friend in the world, Rango, ‘possibly the coolest cat on the planet’ and his companion through many adventures. After going through the pain of losing Rango, Seb was determined to find a way to prevent other pet owners from going through the same pain.

Seb learned that one in three pets go missing in their lifetime, which is more than ten million pets a year – and that it’s preventable. The idea for Pod was born. He and his team built a prototype, kicked off a crowdfunding campaign that raised more than $150,000 and generated massive global awareness.

If you want your dog to be able to speak to you then No More Woof (http://www.nomorewoof.com) connects to your smartphone, so you can be updated on how your dog is feeling with the goal for this product being that eventually the collar will speak the information to you via a selection of voices that you can choose.

Petzi (https://www.petzi.com) is another innovative company that has created the ultimate toy and monitoring device for your dog. Their ‘treat cam’ also links to an app from which you can talk to your pet, see him, take photos of him to share with other Petzi user and on social media, and, most importantly, dispense treats to him while you’re away from home.

But be careful, this device can become dangerously addictive, as has been proven with Sophie, Pets Magazine’s chief taste tester! A Whistle and a Petzi combined could therefore be the perfect combination! What’s certain is that there are even more ingenious devices to come. Perhaps in years to come, the lazier among us, will be sending our pooches out for a walk with a robot, as in Back to the Future…

Marie Carter is the Editor and Publisher of Pets Magazine (www.petsmag.co.uk), a unique leading lifestyle magazine for pet owners, with a monthly readership of 24,000