Wii Fit Plus - Track Pet Health Using Your Game

The Wii game system has been a major success for Nintendo in part because it's easy for just about anyone to use. So easy, in fact, that even your family pet can get in on the fun!

The Wii's popular "Wii Fit Plus" fitness game allows us humans to play body-toning games and track our weight , (weight loss, hopefully), all from our living-room TVs. But because the game includes a cat-and-dog-friendly "Pet Stats" feature, I wondered exactly how our pets are supposed to get involved.

For those not familiar, the Wii Fit Plus game and the included pressure-sensitive Wii Balance Board are the latest tools in the Ninendo Wii game console's active-play phenomenon. After you create a profile and a digital doppelganger (called a "Mii") you can exercise and track your weight with daily body tests.

I've had the Wii Fit Plus game for a while and always found tempting the button to create a Mii for your pet. But with only a fish in the house (who's weight I cared not to monitor), I held off.

Once I welcomed a Boston trerrier puppy named Bacon into my home, I knew the Wii Fit would be a fun way to track his growth from tiny little nugget to full-grown dog.

After customizing Bacon's Pet Mii with pointy ears and the perfect black-and-white Boston terrier coat, I set out to measure him for the first time.

Our first Wii Fit weigh-in was about a week after Bacon's first visit to the veterinarian's office, where he weighed seven pounds. After measuring my weight solo and then asking me to pick up Bacon for the next round, the Wii Fit did some quick math (combined with some pretty cute graphics of my Mii holding Bacon's Mii before setting my virtual pet on the ground) and gave us Bacon's weight: The scale on screen showed the arrow settling about halfway between seven pounds and eight pounds, which Bacon's vet said was about right for Bacon's growth.

At first it seems like Wii Fit Pet Stats offers nothing different from holding Bacon while standing on a regular scale and calculating his weight change with a calculator. And that is kind of true. (Except it is more fun because it is a new gadget!) But where the Wii Fit is better than the bathroom scale is that the Wii Balance Board is trained to know when it's getting inaccurate measurements. On a particularly frisky day with Bacon on the balance board, he refused to sit still in my arms. With all of the additional wiggling and jiggling, rather than give the wrong number, the Wii just said that it "can't find you," and to try again.

The Wii Fit is a valuable tool for fully grown pets, too. Irregular spikes or drops in weight can signal to an owner that something's ailing their pet. Dramatic and unexplained weight loss can be a signal of depression long before they make it to the vet's office.

And if you're setting your plump puppy or fat feline on a weight-loss program, the Wii Fit Plus' Pet Stats can track their weight as they slim down, making sure both that your pet's losing those extra pounds slowly and, most importantly, healthily.

Tags: Pet Mii, pet weight loss, PetMii, PetWeightLoss, wii fit plus, WiiFitPlus