An electronic monitoring device (20) for attaching to an animal (21) for determining a plurality of states of an animal (21). The monitoring device (20) comprises an NFC module (31) which facilitates wireless communication between a smart phone (32) and the monitoring device (20). The monitoring device (20) comprises an accelerometer (27) for monitoring acceleration of the head (25) of the animal (21). A microprocessor (28) determines various states of the animal from signals received from the accelerometer (27). The smart phone (32) is programmed by a software application which allows an identifying code of the monitoring device (20) to be read from the memory chip (36) and cross-referenced in the smart phone (32) with the identity of an animal, which can be inputted into the smart phone (32). Data relating to the state or states of the animal can be read from the microprocessor (28) through the NFC module (31) wirelessly into the smart phone (32). Additionally, data relating to the animal stored in a cloud computer server corresponding to the state or states of the animal is downloaded from the cloud computer server by the smart phone (32).
