UbiComp for animal welfare

Envisioning smart environments for kenneled dogs

Conference paper (2014)

Authors

Clara Mancini Open University
Janet Van Der Linden Open University
Gerd Kortuem Open University
Guy Dewsbury Open University
Daniel Mills University of Lincoln
Paula Boyden Dogs Trust
Affiliation
External organisation
Animal welfare Information management Ambient interactivity Pervasive monitoring Smart kennel
More Info
expand_more

Published Date

2014

Language

English

Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Affiliation

External organisation

Abstract

Whilst the ubicomp community has successfully embraced a number of societal challenges for human benefit, including healthcare and sustainability, the well-being of other animals is hitherto underrepresented. We argue that ubicomp technologies, including sensing and monitoring devices as well as tangible and embodied interfaces, could make a valuable contribution to animal welfare. This paper particularly focuses on dogs in kenneled accommodation, as we investigate the opportunities and challenges for a smart kennel aiming to foster canine welfare. We conducted an indepth ethnographic study of a dog rehoming center over four months; based on our findings, we propose a welfarecentered framework for designing smart environments, integrating monitoring and interaction with information management. We discuss the methodological issues we encountered during the research and propose a smart ethnographic approach for similar projects.