Maven Pet Smart Dog Collar Expert Veterinarian Review

The Maven Pet Health Tracker turns your dog’s own collar into a smart health tracker, providing real-time tracking and live updates. It’s easy to use with a downloadable app that reports data straight to a smartphone. Techies can geek out, but it’s also simple enough for any pet parent to easily navigate.   

Unlike GPS trackers, Maven monitors heart rate, respiratory rate, and activity patterns using AI baseline modeling to detect subtle health changes before symptoms appear. 

Smart dog collars have revolutionized the way pet parents monitor their canine and feline companions, combining wearable technology with real-time health insights. As a veterinarian, I put the Maven Pet Health Tracker to the test to see if it truly delivers on its promises and whether it’s worth the investment for pet owners who want to stay one step ahead of their dog’s health.

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What is the Maven Pet Smart Dog Collar?

The Maven Pet Smart Dog Collar is a pet health tracker developed by a concerned pet parent who wanted to track subtle changes in body systems and behavior that could serve as early indicators of health status. 

Maven’s founder partnered with veterinarians to develop a wearable monitor that could report heart and respiratory rates, activity, head shaking, and drinking data. The collected data is transmitted from the pet’s collar to an app for live viewing, while stored data is used to determine trends and send an alert if parameters fall outside the animal’s individual ‘normal’ range. Maven functions on a subscription basis, with a monthly fee for the app, and each subscription can cover up to three different pets.

Maven Pet Smart Dog Collar 101

Health Tracking 

Unlike many other ‘smart’ or ‘tracking’ devices for dogs and cats, the Maven product not only collects activity and behavior data, but also heart and respiratory rates. This is not a GPS tracker and does not give location updates, but it is truly a health-centric dog health tracker. 

The app comes loaded with some reference ranges for ‘typical’ pets, but most importantly, takes time when initially worn to develop a baseline measurement for each individual pet so that each day their data is compared to their historical ranges in order to flag any situations that are out of the ordinary for each specific animal as the unique individual that they are. 

Even for vigilant pet parents, heart and respiratory rates can be difficult to monitor, especially during the hours we may be separated from our pets – or asleep! Changes in either or both parameters can indicate a variety of situations, from disruptions to activity or routine to health outcomes such as heart and metabolic function.

The Maven Pet Smart Dog Collar is a non-invasive way to use a dog or cat’s own collar to track heart and respiratory rates, and to pair it with real-time information on the pet’s behavior, alerting pet parents to potential situations. 

Activity, as well as non-activity (i.e., rest or sleep), is a useful parameter to measure, and while it’s pretty easy to determine how far you took your dog for a walk on any given day, it’s harder to determine just how active they were in their total day or how consistent their activity patterns are. 

For cats, whether they live indoors or have outdoor access, determining their activity level can be even more challenging. Changes in activity and rest behaviors can be early indicators of comfort or health status. For example, a cat whose sleep is frequently interrupted may be uncomfortable and unable to rest well, even if no other signs of discomfort or pain are evident. 

Or perhaps an aging dog is starting to show alterations in their sleep/wake schedule that could be an early indication of declining cognitive function. Subtle changes in rest and activity can be easy to miss until they progress to become overtly obvious or other signs of more advanced stages begin to appear, so having a tracker monitor a pet’s individual patterns could serve as an advanced warning system when abnormalities to a pet’s routine appear.

The Maven Pet Smart Dog Collar also monitors two indicator behaviors – drinking and head shaking – that can alert pet parents to changes in their animal’s well-being. Increased or decreased drinking can be associated with a variety of causes and consequences, though pairing this information with data on resting heart and respiratory rates, activity, and rest can provide pet parents and health care providers with a more comprehensive picture and help narrow down potential explanations for the change in behavior. Head shaking is typically a more specific indicator of discomfort, predominantly for the ears, eyes, nose, and throat. 

For parameters that may not be directly tracked by the device, such as specific health signs, the app allows pet parents to input symptoms and describe occurrences, which they can also share with their pet’s health care provider. 

Ease of Use & Setup

In the box with the device, there are clear instructions and a QR code to download the app and create a profile for the pet. The app is intuitive and easy to follow, even for those of us a little behind the technology curve. App setup follows simple step-by-step instructions to connect the device to Bluetooth or wifi. Information about each pet is input into their profile, with optional extras to add additional data to provide as comprehensive a picture of a pet’s health background as reasonably possible

The device itself is small and lightweight, fine for dogs at least down to 4.5kg (the smallest dog I have to try it on!) and cats. It comes with a variety of holders to secure it to the pet’s collar, so there is no requirement to purchase a whole new collar; it can just be worn in the comfort of the pet’s current collar. 

Anecdotally, the dogs I trialed the Maven Pet Smart Dog Collar on are not used to wearing a collar unless out on adventures, so wearing one indoors 24/7 was new to them. They tolerated the collar well, but their scratching data was likely slightly skewed as they adjusted to wearing it and initially scratched it on occasion.  

Accuracy & Reliability

I did my best to put this smart collar through its paces in a variety of situations to determine how accurate its data reporting and pattern recognition were. I measured heart and respiratory rates on occasion and compared them to the data presented in the app; there was good consistency, so I was confident this was being measured accurately enough. Additionally, sleep/wake and activity data were captured fairly well, including monitoring of a senior dog with arthritis and cognitive dysfunction exhibiting abnormal nighttime routines.

 One of the applications described on the Maven website is for post-surgical tracking and improved treatment plans, so I wanted to put this concept to the test as well. I was also able to track differences in rest and activity in a dog pre- and post-therapy for arthritis, noting changes in rest duration and consistency, as well as increased exercise levels, suggesting improved comfort. 

Where to Buy & Pricing

The Maven Pet Smart Dog Collar can be purchased directly from the company’s website, maven.pet.  At the time of writing, the device costs $0 with new subscription purchases, with annual plans starting at $18.89 CAD per month or $12.59 USD, making it the most affordable device and putting the subscription price in the mid-range compared to tracking collars and devices. 

Final Verdict: Is Maven Pet Worth It?

Maven Pet stands out for its health-first approach to smart collars. The data tracking provides peace of mind for pet parents who want to stay ahead of potential health issues. With its low profile and light weight, it excels in comfort, application (suitable for many small dogs and cats that may be put off by larger, bulkier GPS trackers), ease of use, and actionable insights through the app. 

This smart dog collar is best for pet parents who value proactive health monitoring and want expert input on changes in their dog’s behavior or activity; people with senior dogs, dogs with health conditions, or new puppy parents wanting extra support. 

Unlike most competitor products, the Maven device does not offer location tracking, so this is not ideal for pet parents looking for a GPS collar. It is also not ideal for pets who are not used to wearing a collar consistently.

Personally, I’m not an advocate of dogs or cats wearing collars 24/7, especially those with sensitive skin, left alone for extended periods (due to the risk of the collar getting caught or twisted), having indoor/outdoor access, multi-dog households, etc. Some of these risks can be mitigated by using a breakaway collar, but even with breakaway collars, the risks of discomfort, skin irritation, and hair matting, particularly in longer-coated animals, remain. 

That said, for pets who wear a collar continuously, adding the Maven device poses no increased risk, and it is a very low-profile, lightweight unit that would likely be unnoticeable to most pets. 

The application for veterinarians is mentioned on the Maven website, but deserves more discussion, as this is another great potential application for the Maven Pet Smart Dog Collar. Monitoring activity levels and health indices could provide veterinarians with a wealth of information about their patients, particularly pre- and post-interventions.

For example, alerts regarding resting behaviors, heart rate, and respiration could suggest to a veterinarian that post-operative pain management may require tweaking. On the contrary, increased activity levels may indicate a good response to initiating a new medication or nutraceutical for a patient with chronic pain.

Real-time tracking and objective data collection could be powerful tools for veterinarians to monitor their patients and remove human error and bias factors from the equation, enabling informed decisions about patient care. The ways in which this could be integrated into veterinary practice are endless! 

In summary, the Maven Pet Smart Dog Collar is worth it for pet parents who prioritize early detection and ongoing health insights, have pets who wear collars consistently, and for veterinarians monitoring patient outcomes.