Can a Pet Health App Really Cut Your Vet Bills?

March 24, 2023

Updated September 2026: this article was first published in March 2023 about TTcare, an app from the Korean company AI FOR PET that promised to spot eye and skin problems from a phone photo. The English-language app left Google Play in April 2025 and is gone from the Canadian App Store. AI FOR PET now offers TTcare Vet, which its store listing restricts to veterinarians and pet care professionals granted an account by the developer, plus a Korean-language service for owners. This page is now a guide to what such an app can and cannot do for your vet bill.

No app can tell you a vet visit is unnecessary. Only an examination can. What an app, or any decent record, can do is help you notice a change sooner and hand your vet dated photos, a weight history and vaccination dates. Problems caught early are usually the cheapest to treat.

Squinting, a new lump, a limp, or a pet that just seems off is a call to your clinic, not a scan, and a phone call is the cheapest first step. If your pet is injured or seriously unwell, see a vet now.

Can an app diagnose your pet from a photo?

AI FOR PET said its scan was over 90% accurate, trained on more than a million photos; its later materials claim 95%. Those are the company's own figures. It cites peer-reviewed work on its underlying models, but no published test of the app itself on photographs taken by ordinary owners could be found.

The 90% points back to a 2019 study in Scientific Reports on neural networks and canine corneal ulcers. Its 526 corneal photographs, from 281 dogs, came from patients at Konkuk University's Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital between 2015 and 2017 and from three Korean eye specialty hospitals; the authors note the pictures “were not always taken in a constant environment”. Of those, 130 photographs were used, 96 to train the models and 34 to check them, labelled normal, superficial ulcer or deep ulcer, with descemetoceles and perforations counted as deep. Most models scored 90% to 100% separating the two ulcer grades; across all three labels the range was 55.9% to 100%. The paper tested no app, no cats, no skin and no joints, and its images came from hospital patients rather than from owners photographing their own pets. It predates the company.

A photograph has limits. A fatty lump and a cancer look alike from outside; telling them apart starts with a needle sample at the clinic, and sometimes takes a biopsy. A picture cannot show why a dog limps, or tell a scratched eye from glaucoma, and an eye can lose sight within a day or two of waiting. The vendor's own listing said the app “does NOT provide medical advice, opinion, diagnosis or treatment” and did not replace a veterinarian or regular checkups. In Ontario, veterinary medicine is regulated under the Veterinarians Act, and with narrow exceptions, such as owners treating their own animals, only veterinarians licensed by the College of Veterinarians of Ontario may practise it. Never put leftover eye drops or ointment into an eye a vet has not examined: some of them contain a steroid, which can make an ulcer far worse.

These are a vet visit, not a scan

  • Breathing, collapse and poisons. Laboured or noisy breathing, open-mouth breathing in a cat, blue or grey gums, collapse, a seizure, a deep-chested dog with a swollen belly retching up nothing, a cat that suddenly cannot use its back legs, or anything swallowed that should not have been: a vet now, phone ahead, and do not try to make your pet sick at home.
  • Eyes. Squinting or holding the eye shut, a cloudy or blue cornea, sudden redness, or one pupil larger than the other: same day. An eye pushed out of the socket, a puncture or cut, or anything splashed into an eye: a vet now.
  • Skin. Any new lump: book an appointment and ask about a needle sample. A lump that is growing, bleeding or breaking open, or a raw patch that spreads: same day. Sudden facial swelling, hives, or a mass that will not stop bleeding: a vet now.
  • Legs and joints. Not putting any weight on a leg, or a hot or swollen joint: same day. Limping with fever or lethargy: same day. A limp lasting more than a day or two: book an appointment.
  • Urinating. A cat straining in the litter box, crying while trying to pee, or passing nothing is an emergency, most often a male cat, and a blocked cat can die within a day or two: a vet now.
  • Behaviour. New hiding, irritability or house-soiling: book an appointment. A behaviour change can be pain or illness, so that gets ruled out first.

When in doubt, phone your clinic and ask whether it can wait. If they are closed, phone the nearest emergency hospital instead; do not sit on it until morning.

What actually lowers vet bills in Ontario

Costs keep rising. Trevor Lawson, president of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, told Global News in March 2024 that the cost of care had gone up six to eight per cent a year over the previous couple of years, which he called “beyond our normal expectation for inflation”. These are the levers owners actually have.

  • Stay on schedule with vaccines, parasite prevention and the annual exam. Let a rabies shot lapse and your pet no longer counts as vaccinated until it is redone, some vaccines need two doses again if they are years overdue, and kennels and groomers ask for proof.
  • Keep your pet's weight in range. It sits underneath joint disease and breathing trouble, and in cats it is one of the main risks for diabetes.
  • Ask for an estimate on planned care and compare, but never delay emergency care to shop around. Our guide to Toronto vets covers how to ask.
  • Ask about payment plans before treatment starts, not afterwards.
  • Get a second opinion before major non-urgent surgery; a consultation fee is small next to an operation.
  • Settle insurance or an emergency fund before you need it. Could you cover a large surprise bill tomorrow? A premium or a dedicated savings account both beat deciding in a waiting room.
  • Use lower-cost preventive care. Toronto Humane Society runs limited-service clinics for wellness visits, vaccines, parasite prevention, microchipping, dental and spay and neuter, at prices it says are substantially lower than the industry standard, with reduced pricing on proof of ODSP, Ontario Works, GIS or CPP disability. It is not a full-service clinic and does not treat sick or injured owned animals.
  • If money is tight and your pet is sick or hurt, ask your vet about the Farley Foundation. The charity subsidizes non-elective care for owners on ODSP, CPP disability, Ontario Works or the Guaranteed Income Supplement, and for households under $35,000 a year; your vet applies, and the clinic must be an OVMA member, as most Ontario clinics are. See our 2015 profile of the charity, and check the current criteria on their site.
  • Keep one record so vaccines and tests are never repeated because the paper got lost.

What happened to TTcare

TTcare marketing graphic from 2023: a dog and a kitten with example eye and skin scan callouts drawn by the app maker

Image: AI FOR PET marketing material for TTcare (2023); the figures shown are the company's illustration, not a real pet's results.

TTcare came from AI FOR PET, a Seoul start-up founded in April 2020 by Euna Huh, which says it built the app on the 2019 Konkuk research. Korean regulators licensed its software as animal diagnostic-imaging assistance software in October 2020. The Korean app launched later that year, the English version in 2022. TTcare was a CES Innovation Awards honoree in 2022 and 2023, a consumer-electronics design honour and not a medical approval.

In 2023 it scanned eyes and skin; the company said at CES that video-based joint exams and photo-based dental checks were due in the first half of that year, though the January coverage already listed a joint check. It also offered consultations with online vets; the scan itself was automated. Launch pricing was three free scans, then US$4.99 a month or US$49.99 a year. It was withdrawn from Google Play in April 2025.

What Petbook does for your pet's health, free

Strip away the AI and what a health app really does for your vet bill is the boring part: the next vaccine on time, a weight trend you can show the vet, and your vet's number when you need it. Petbook does that part for free, for every pet.

  • Care card and health record. Vaccinations with the next-due date your vet gave you, a weight log in kilograms or pounds, vet visits with date, reason and notes, and microchip, rabies-tag and city-licence numbers. The care card holds feeding, medications, allergies, handling notes and your vet's name and number.
  • Reminders. A “Coming up” card lists vaccinations due within 30 days or overdue; switch on the e-mail and one arrives about two weeks before, one if the date passes. Vaccinations only.
  • A free QR collar tag. Download it, print it, clip it on. A finder scans it, reaches you without an account, and sees the essentials, allergies, medications, handling notes and your vet's number, so a stranger can keep your pet safe until you get there. Printed metal tags come from the tag page.
  • Lost and Found. A free alert with a public page anyone can share; no account needed to help, and finders can message you.
  • An activity log. One-tap house-training, meals, walks and medication entries.
  • Caretakers. Invite a sitter, walker or family member by e-mail; they log the day, tick checklists and read the care card and vaccinations, and every activity entry a caretaker logs is labelled with their name.
  • Tag Protection. An optional subscription that e-mails you when the tag is scanned, time only, never who or where.

The point of a record is to bring it to your vet, not to replace them. Create a free account and add your pet; the FAQ explains each piece.

Sources

Petbook has no relationship with AI FOR PET, received nothing for this article and did not test the app.

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