Patting Animals Across Internet?!

Mixed Reality Lab has made a new toy I'd love to get my hands on. It's a device that allows you to interact with an animal over the internet. A dummy chicken on the users end mimakes the actions of a chicken, captured by webcam. The dummy has sensors in it and the real chicken wears a haptic jacket, so when you touch the dummy the chicken feels it.

For animals will this open up a new way of visiting the zoo?

How could this be used in games? Wearing full scale haptic suits and fighting a dummy in hand to hand combat? Now I would LOVE to try that!