Help us calm anxious dogs with our harness that replicates the feeling of touch.

Does your dog look distressed when you look like you might be leaving them?

Does your neighbour's dog bark every time they leave them alone in the house?

Or maybe thunder or fireworks cause them to hide?

These are signs of dog anxiety - one in five dogs can experience this from time to time. 

Kia ora, I am Fiona Taimana the CEO and co-founder of Korawai, with my husband John.

Like many other people, I saw COVID lockdown as a chance to get a puppy. We welcomed a beautiful toy poodle into our home. All was well until the travel restrictions eased and then we discovered she starts shaking when we travel more than 60kms an hour, I am not sure who was more worked - up her or me?

Here is our fabulous toy poodle - Korra.

Our Solution

Over the last four years we have been developing our pet calming garment with our research engineer and consultant vet behaviorist.

We are proud to say we have a prototype harness that has show positive signs helping small dogs when traveling.

We are wanting to undertake more research with our Vet to gather more data on different dog breeds and sizes. 

 

Why are we crowdfunding?

We are seeking to create a community of pet lovers looking to help their dogs, by either:

- Pre-ordering our harness to help us demonstrate there is demand for this kind of anxiety product, i.e. we can be commercially viable. This will assist us in securing more funding.

- Other contributions will go towards more data gathering and understanding of how the harness works on different dog sizes, and in a variety of anxiety scenarios. eg separation anxiety.

 

Please note - while initial findings are very positive we have a minimum of six months to get to a final professional product to deliver to you. There is some secrecy around the look and feel of the garment to protect the intellectual property (design and tech) so that is why there are not a lot of pictures right now.

 

About our tech.

The technology behind our pet harness was developed in the Auckland Bioengineering Institute by our research engineer, Sachith as part of his PhD.

I met Sachith when I was working on my masters in Commercialisation & Entrepreneurship at the University of Auckland, specialising in the science and technology industries.

John and I then created our company Korawai, through our learnings with the Kōkiri Business Accelerator in 2021.

Watch our video here

 

How does it work?

The technology works to replicate the feeling of touch in a non-invasive way, powered by a rechargeable battery.(NB: It does NOT use shock methodology)

The tech sits inside a specially designed dog harness and is activated by the owner just prior to the dog being exposed to the distressing situation (where possible).

We have worked closely with our Vet behaviourist - Dr Elsa Flint from Animals with Attitude.

Dr Flint is researching the impact of our harness on dogs' anxiety in a number of settings so we learn how it works on all dogs' shapes and sizes. 

Dr Flint works as a veterinarian in small animal practice whilst also running the Animals with Attitude behaviour clinic. She is co-author of several books on animal behaviour and management and has published scientific papers in the field of animal behaviour. Dr Flint has an MSc (hons) in Behavioural Zoology, a Bachelor of Veterinary Science, and Membership of the Australian and New Zealand College of Veterinary Scientists in animal behaviour. She has a PhD in Veterinary Science. The subject of her research was the social significance of barking in dogs. Dr Flint is also a Certified Fear Free Professional.

 

Support we’ve had so far

We have had funding from NZ’s innovation agency - Callaghan Innovation, for our team and the research and development for our dog harness. 

We were also selected for NZ’s only Māori accelerator programme - Kōkiri and completed the programme in 2021.

Our vision

Our vision stems from a multi-dimensional perspective which comes from the Māori kaupapa led approach – the spirit, the whanau, the relationships, the care.

“Aotearoa and Māori is all about being authentic and the kaitiakitanga around protecting our place. We wish to create an international connectedness with Korawai.”

Part of our goal is to inspire rangatahi into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and global business. 

Fiona mentors at the Centre of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Auckland in their start-up programmes.

 

Meet our team

 

About our name: Korawai

Korowai may be a familiar word to some of you as the Māori word for cloak, woven from the feathers of native birds in New Zealand.

We wanted to create a company providing technology that creates comfort through connectivity, to add in that “spark” to a garment -  “kora” in Māori.