Can AI tell you how your cat's feeling? Meet Moggie.

At last week’s Pet & Aquatics Trade Show (PATS), I caught up with Sarah Irving, Head of Community and Marketing at Moggie, to learn how their feline activity tracker aims to change the way we understand cat health.

“Cats are notorious for hiding issues. They’re very stoic, so you don’t know that something’s going on until it’s too late, and at which point it’s very expensive to treat, or it’s not treatable at all,” she said.

Moggie’s tracker monitors everyday behaviours: eating, drinking, walking, jumping, grooming, litter use, scratching, playing.

The aim: Catch the tiny nuances of changes before cat parents can see them.

“There will be a period before then when they’ll be drinking a little bit here and there that you don’t see,” Sarah said. “Moggie will help you know that and help you have a baseline to say my cat is doing their normal things, or they’re not.”

The team is now refining the Moggie app to make insights easier to interpret.

“The main question that comes up is, is my cat doing their normal things? So we’re looking at how we can help you understand that quickly… while you’re on holiday, you don’t want to be looking at too much information, but you want to know if your cat is okay.”

Behind the scenes, Moggie is continually training its AI model. That means teaching it to distinguish between a cat drinking from a bowl, a fountain, or even a tap.

“It’s about enriching it as much as we can with cat behaviours… we have the basic standard, and then we’ll start feeding into it above that.”

Of course, strapping a tracker to a cat isn’t without its challenges.

“There has been some education around it… the biggest thing that has been a training is because there’s quite a few cats that don’t wear collars,” Sarah said.

Her advice? Patience and treats.

“Slow introductions, lots of nice treats. Recommend high value treats to anything that they would absolutely go mad for. It’s a positive reinforcement.” Most cats, she says, adapt in about a week.

With seven cats at home, Sarah has been through the testing process several times. “I currently only have one that isn’t wearing a tracker, only because he arrived last week.”

Looking ahead, Moggie sees potential in linking data with vets and even product recommendations.

“There’s a lot of feedback from vets saying that when they send cats home, they don’t get the feedback afterwards… but they will be able to see on their side when they think of your cat, and they can see that the activities come back to normal levels.”

As for broader cat trends, Sarah sees technology making its way into more homes.

“I think more in-home care and monitoring… smart fountains and things like that, I think a lot of that’s going to be quite prevalent next year.”

Cats are well-known for their ability to hide pain. This may be an excellent survival skill in the wild, but not so useful for telling cat parents when it’s time to see the vet.

The lack of early signals that a cat may be ill has led to significant under-diagnosis.

Chronic kidney disease, diabetes, obesity and arthritis in cats often go unnoticed until late stages, because early signs are missed.

A UK VetCompass study found that only 1.2% of cats under 9 had diagnosed CKD, rising to 3.6% in cats 9 years or older. However, 66% of those cases were identified only after cats showed clinical signs, meaning the disease was already advanced.

Another study (Mortier et al. JVIM 2024) showed that apparently healthy-seeming cats frequently had subclinical disease.

Another reason for the late diagnosis of chronic diseases in cats is the stark disparity between the level of vet visits for cats and dogs.

Last year in the U.S., only 30% of dogs did not see a vet, compared to 70% of cats.

The situation is slightly rosier across the pond. According to the recently released CATS 2025 Report, 64% of cat parents take their cat to the vet routinely every year in the UK, and 57% of owners say that they do not visit the vet as oftwn as they would like.

Another challenge is what might be called the “wearables gap.” While the dog tech space is saturated, cats lag behind.

While uptake of cat trackers is growing, there is definitely room for further growth. According to the CATS 2025 report, 40% of UK cat parents own or use an electronic or smart product, but only 9% use a cat-worn health tracker.

Companies (such as Moggie, RABO and Tractive) that use AI to monitor feline activity are therefore key to feline preventive health.

(Check out our interview with RABO, maker of Catlog).

We’ll be uploading founder interviews regularly. Make sure you keep an eye on our Linkedin page and Instagram for updates!