001497943

Courtesy of Jackson Laycock

You know there's an app for that, you just don't know what it's called, how to find it or whether or not it's worth downloading. So, all you dog (and pet) lovers out there, we've rounded up the five most useful furball-friendly iPhone apps, from a dog park finder to a digital dog whistle.

HEY WALKIES!
How do city-dwelling dog owners find a dog park that's outside of their own five-block radius? Anyone? Bueller? For New York City dog folks, Hey Walkies! has made the search a lot easier. Creator Chad Jackson produced Hey Walkies! as part of the city's BigApps challenge, and with his interactive design firm, Jackson Laycock, and design partner Kettle, he's built a user-friendly app that's got great design as a bonus (uncommon in the pet app world, trust us).

Jackson tells PEOPLEPets.com that Hey Walkies! will expand to include other cities in the near future, and that his team is also developing a mobile web app accessible beyond the iPhone. Hey Walkies! has already incorporated Facebook Connect, which allows dog owners to converse with each other. "There's that persistent little rumor about New York, where you can borrow a cute dog and go to a dog park and meet a guy or girl and fall in love," he says. "It's a great way to meet people." Who knows — Hey Walkies! might just be the gateway to meeting your soul mate. (Free)

FIDO FACTOR
Need a one-stop indicator of which city restaurants allow dogs and which local groomers do the best work without ripping you off? Check out Fido Factor, an app that bills itself as the "Yelp for dogs." Still in its beta stage, Fido Factor features information about San Francisco, Boston, New York and Portland. It's working out some kinks — a recent search for N.Y.C.'s dog-friendly restaurants yielded results on Boston's Newbury Street. (Free)

iPET FINDER
This one's for the animal lover who's always wanted Petfinder.com in app form. While it's not the most cutting-edge — functionality isn't the sharpest and the design is a little dated — iPet Finder does give a sense of the number of pets available in your area. Portions of the proceeds go to the Cesar and Ilusion Milan Foundation. ($0.99)

PET DOSSIER
Carrying around a dog's vitals just isn't a reasonable thing to expect of a pet owner. Who can keep track of vet records and ID numbers, especially when there's more than one animal in the house? YepYup's Pet Dossier acts as a digital file cabinet of all your pets' records, and even has a place for vet and groomer contact information. We promised useful, right? Here you go. ($1.99)

DOG WHISTLER
The Dog Whistler is what you might call an iInstrument — you can adjust the frequency and pitch of a whistle sound to call your dog. Initial tests in the PEOPLEPets.com labs didn't yield any positive results on an actual dog (it may just be that she's particularly insubordinate), but as a free app, it was still fun to try out. (Free)

Helin Jung, helin@peoplepets.com