Top 10 Alexa Skills for Dog Owners

Do you have a device that’s enabled with Amazon’s electronic assistant, Alexa? Alexa is great for playing music, answering questions, keeping lists or cooking a recipe. While Alexa may be best known for helping you around the house, Alexa offers some great skills for dog lovers.

An Alexa skill is like an app. You can enable or disable skills in the same way you install or uninstall an app. Unlike other devices like Google Home, Alexa Skills don’t come pre-enabled. You have to ask Alexa to enable the particular skill you’re interested in.

Here are ten Alexa skills that can help you and your dog, whether you’re home or not!

1. Puppy Jams

“Alexa, open Puppy Jams”

Puppy Jams is an Alexa skill that plays music for dogs from iHeartRadio. Puppy Jams tailors its choice of music to your dog’s moods. When you open this skill, Alexa will ask how your dog is feeling so it can play tunes that fit your dog’s mood.

2. Calm My Dog

“Alexa, open Calm My Dog”

If Puppy Jams is a bit too much for your dog, you can play some more relaxing sounds. Music has been shown to soothe nerves in people and animals. Consider downloading the Calm My Dog skill to help your dog relax next time he or she is having a hard time.

This skill is different from Puppy Jams because it plays lyric-free tunes. It offers a vast array of classical music that help your dog relax. The controls are easy to master as well, so you can start or stop the app with simple commands.

3. Audible for Dogs

“Alexa, play Audiobooks for Dogs by Cesar Millan”.

Do you enjoy listening to Audible books? Apparently dogs do too! If you don’t have time to read your dog a book, Alexa has a great skill called Audible for Dogs.

Dog behaviorist and Dog Whisperer host Cesar Millan partnered with Audible to make a series of Audible books available to help dogs relax. Almost 76 percent of Alexa users who tried the audiobooks reported their dogs became calmer and more relaxed.

Start by setting up your Audible account with Alexa using the Alexa app on your phone. From there, download the free book “Audiobooks for Dogs by Cesar Millan. This book will give you information on the best titles, genre and voice for your dog.

Pro tip: consider downloading an audiobook with a similar voice to your own. Dogs respond better to voices that are like their owners.

4. Al the Dog Trainer

“Alexa, open Al the Dog Trainer”

Al the Dog Trainer is a virtual dog trainer. While this skill is more for you than your dog, it helps you understand your dog’s behavior and learn what to do about it.

To use the skill, submit a question related to training your dog. After you submit your question, Alexa will assemble content related to your question to help you. The creator, Al Longoria, tailors responses in answer to the question.

The dog trainer offers a live show on Facebook on Wednesday nights. Questions Alexa users have asked are featured in the Facebook Live show.

5. MyPetDoc

“Alexa, open MyPetDoc”

This is a veterinary question and answer app that has a high rating by users. The app was developed by Vet24Seven, the company that also hosts Ask.Vet. This app offers a large archive of veterinary information to answer questions and concerns you have about your dog’s health. Unlike other Alexa pet health skills, however, this one gives you the ability to connect immediately with a licensed veterinarian if you can’t find the answer you need.

Of course, the online vet can’t diagnose your dog without an examination, but it can be helpful to determine if you need to make an appointment for your dog with your own veterinarian or need advice on what to do next given your dog’s symptoms.

6. Basic Dog Training Commands

“Alexa, open Basic Dog Training Commands”

Basic Dog Training Commands isn’t a replacement for actual dog training classes because real classes offer other benefits such as socialization and the trainer being able to see your pooch in action. However, this is a fun skill to help first-time puppy owners to learn very basic commands and practice them at home. Click here to learn more about Canine Campus Dog Obedience Training Classes.

7. Dog Breed Quiz

“Alexa, play Dog Breed Quiz”

Whether you are researching the best dog breed for your family or whether you just want to learn more about your dog’s breed, this skill can help and it’s entertaining to listen too as well! The Dog Breed Quiz app will test your knowledge about dogs and different breeds, then teach you things you don’t know about dog breeds from all over the world. It’s a fun app and interesting to listen to in your free time.

8. Fascinating Dog Facts

“Alexa, play fascinating dog facts”

Fascinating dog facts is a great way to learn more about the canine species in general. Once you’ve downloaded and activated this Alexa skill, it will  read off randomly selected dog facts that range from the questions you’ve always wanted answers to facts you never thought to ask about. For example – do you know why your dog curls up when he or she sleeps? Ask your Alexa!

9. Dog Challenge

“Alexa, play Dog Challenge”

Dog Challenge is a fun Alexa skill game that allows you to hone your dog knowledge by asking you to guess a dog’s breed based on a description and sound of the dog’s bark. The goal of the game is to guess five dog breeds correctly in a row and, if you do, you will be added to the Daily Dog Expert Hall of Fame. If you don’t… well, you still learn more about different breeds. Hopefully, eventually you’ll learn enough to identify multiple breeds.

10. Stop Dog Barking

“Alexa, open Stop Dog Barking”

This Alexa skill can be a real lifesaver if your dog is an incessant barker. The Stop Dog Barking skill will emit a high-pitched frequency that dogs don’t like and will cause them to stop barking.

There are many more dog-related Alexa skills for you to learn about and explore. To learn more, go to Amazon’s Alexa Skills: Lifestyle: Pets & Animals. From there, you can look through the skills and select the ones that interest you. Have fun!

What is your favorite dog-related Alexa skill? Please share in the comments below!