Cat toys, canine TV at VMX

There wasn't much rain in Orlando last week, but it still rained cats and dogs. Get it? Because VMX wrapped up last week, and the new veterinary drugs, equipment, products and services were all over the conference's exhibit hall. While medical sophistication gets its due in other coverage in the coming weeks, we wanted to share two fun cat and dog products that caught our eye.

No cat toy catastrophe

Catit cat toys from Rolf C. Hagen covered a large table in one booth like Hot Wheels tracks from a 1980s kid's Christmas list. Every green-tinged variety of the cat-amusing, cat-feeding toys were jammed together in one big awesome mess.

The booth representative said we should have seen the setup at a recent pet retail show, where they put up see-through plastic barriers around the toy table, put in kittens and watched them play for hours. What happened when the kittens got tired? They all smooshed together on a pillow on one of the toys. We were going to take a picture of the layout at VMX, but when we heard we missed all those kittens, we got distracted by regret.

You can check out the food tree you see in the pics here on our website.

If you want to see the whole menu of cat distractions, check out the company website.

If you own a cat, you're gonna buy something, especially if you watch this cute, 10-minute video. Your bank account has been warned.

Doggie boob tube

You're forgiven if you haven't heard about Dog TV yet. A representative told us the company has really been focused on getting space on streaming devices and cable TV lineups, and now their focus is finally on getting the word out to the pet owner and veterinary market.

The pitch is this: People listen to music and watch TV all day with their dogs, then when they're off to work, some leave those items on so dogs have something to watch and listen to. But a lot of the sights and sounds humans like can be jarring to pets left at home. What looks and sounds stimulating, fun or relaxing to you may not register the same way for your four-legged family member.

Enter Dog TV, which aims to “soothe and entertain” canines at home. The channel promises the programming has been “scientifically designed with some of the world's leading pet experts,” and the representative says the station performs well in stimulating and soothing dogs compared to no TV, news channels or Animal Planet.

Try the free 14-day trial ($9.99/month after that) and see what you think. Let us know at dvm360@ubm.com. We're curious and we're doing our own tiny trials with our own dogs.