CES 2021: Taiwanese Startup Sniffy Labs Takes Dog Training To The Next Level

TAIPEI, Jan, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Sniffy Labs, a startup based in Rochester, NY focusing on developing pet technology to improve the relationship between humans and animals, introduces Sniffy App – a dog training app that provides customized, professional, on-demand dog training and support for dog owners who lack training experience.

Sniffy is carefully programmed to create training plans tailored to each dog owner’s needs and to teach users scientifically proven methods to train dogs. This unique and innovative product has been selected by Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA) as one of the 100 featured Taiwanese startups showcased at CES 2021.

By dog owners, for dog owners

Sniffy is a mobile app (iOS & Android) that provides dog owners with professional, customized, on-demand dog training and support. It is backed by certified dog trainers and behaviorists, and offers scientific training content and interactive in-app training programs that can be easily followed at home or on your dog walk.

Sniffy creates tailored dog training plans to teach dog owners how to train their dogs regularly at home. The app also helps dog owners track their training progress and maintain consistency through the entire training process.

Sniffy’s training is based on setting your dog up for success while using proven, positive-reinforcement and non-punishment-based training methods. “It is professional and effective as well as easy and enjoyable,” said Sniffy Labs Co-Founder & President Howard Shyng, who is currently raising a four-year old Border Collie.

Enhancing relationships between pets and humans

The Sniffy app features customized training plans that help users set their training goals such as obedience, agility, and behavior correction based on their needs and their dog’s condition. It also provides a daily routine during which you and your dog need to complete daily practice and lessons. The app will adjust the routine based on your input regarding your dog’s performance in the daily training session.

Sniffy has a progress tracker that allows users to keep tabs on every aspect of training meaning that you will be able to catch up if you fall behind with the training.

For those with more than one dog, Sniffy allows users to create multiple dog profiles with customized plans for each dog as well.

There are short professional video tutorials to get your dog trained. The training data will be synced to all family members’ devices so that all members can enjoy doing the training.

Sniffy can help reduce abandoned dogs with proper training

Shyng talked about how he started Sniffy “I came to the U.S. to pursue my master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), where I met my best friend and most important business partner, Ting. We always did class projects together and got good grades. The heavy workload of school projects did not make me forget my dream. I wanted to apply skills I’d learned at school to building an app for dogs.”

“I knew about the importance of walking a dog twice every day. However, my guess was that lots of owners don’t walk their dogs enough because dog walking can be very boring when it becomes a daily routine. Then I asked Ting if she wanted to develop an app that could make dog walking more fun to motivate owners. As an animal lover, Ting thought this was an interesting and meaningful project and decided to join. We named our team Sniffy and began our startup journey.”

After going through an accelerator at RIT, Sniffy pivoted this business idea to better reflect its customer discovery results and started the creation of Sniffy App. The team firmly believes that there is potential for dog training in the pet industry.

Shyng said that the most common reason owners abandon their dogs is behavioral issues, with about 47% of dogs in shelters abandoned because of not behaving well.

“As a result, we envisioned making professional dog training resources accessible to every dog owner and providing tailored plans to fit both their needs and their dog’s learning curve. Something like this would make it very possible that dogs become great family members through training and owners never consider abandoning their furry buddies.”