Cat owners who love to take pictures of their furry friends now have a new excuse to pull out their smartphones and take a snapshot: it may actually help the cat.
A Calgary, Alberta, animal health technology company, Sylvester.ai, has developed an app called Tably that uses the phone’s camera to tell whether a feline is feeling pain.
The app looks at ear and head position, eye-narrowing, muzzle tension, and how whiskers change, to detect distress.
A 2019 study published in peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports found that the so-called “feline grimace scale”, or FGS, is a valid, reliable tool for acute pain assessment in cats.
“It helps human cat owners know if their cat is in pain or not,” said Miche Priest, Sylvester.ai’s venture lead.
“We were able to train…