BarkCam, BarkBox’s Instagram For Dogs, Is Now Available

Instagram is the Instagram for dogs in many ways, but BarkBox thinks it doesn’t go quite far enough. The company’s new app is BarkCam, an iOS title available now and designed to make it easier to capture and enhancify your doggy pictures.

Why is the app better than Instagram for dog pics specifically? BarkBox says it’s because it can automatically play sounds that catch the attention of your pup and make them face and stay still for the camera, for one. The rest of the app’s unique appeal comes in the filters and stickers you can apply to photos you take, or ones you’ve already got in your device’s library.

The app is admittedly insane and slightly useless, but so are most devoted dog owners (before you take offense, I’m currently in the early stages of adopting one and have owned many dogs in the past), and it’s free. Plus, early reviews seem to agree that the sounds the app makes just ahead of firing the shutter actually do work to get your dog looking straight into the frame, possibly with a quizzical inclination of their canine head.

BarkCam is the latest in BarkBox’s growing stable of services aimed at dog and pet owners, which now includes a veterinary car service, a news and media site, and a Tinder-for-dogs-style service for browsing Pet Finder’s adoption listings. BarkBox still operates its original e-commerce monthly subscription business on top of all that.

BarkCam also has a built-in network for sharing your doggy photos and options that let you place them across various other social networks should you feel like doing that, too. It’s free on the App Store today, with an Android launch planned for sometime around the end of August. Now all I need is a dog.