The RSPCA funded research that saw scientists at the University of Bristol and scientists set about by initially comparing animal responses to typical human ones. However, this approach does not give the full picture because, according to professor Mike Mendl, emotions are naturally private and dogs do not think in the same way as humans.

The research does show that dogs, like humans, are naturally inclined to either be positive or negative in their beliefs. Some are optimists and some are pessimists and in the same way that humans can change their natural outlook so too can dogs, with help from behaviourists.

The study involved teaching dogs that if a bowl was placed in a certain position it would have food in, but if it were placed elsewhere it would be empty. The bowl was then placed in various positions between these two spots and the animals’ responses were measured to ascertain whether they were optimistic or pessmistic over the chance of their being food.

Those dogs that believed there would be food in the bowl when placed in new positions were those that were least likely to show signs of anxiety when seperated from their owners.

Dogs Naturally Tend To Believe That The Bowl Is Half Full is a post from: Gadgets and gizmos

This little gadget has been designed on the basis that you would like to see what your pet has been up to and to see life from their point of view. This little gadget takes and stores pictures on its’ internal memory so you can look at them at the end of the day. It’s big brother for your pet that is actually quite interesting and can have practical uses.

Design

It is a small, lightweight little thing (5.5cm, x 5.5cm x 3.5 cm) which you clip onto your pet’s collar. When we tried on ‘Allfluff’, our gadget loving cat it did seem a little big and would probably be best suited to larger cats or dogs. The pet’s eye view camera is robust and survived all that our cat could throw at it. It is rechargable but can only take a decent picture during the day as the device does not have infrared, this would be cool as cats are nocturnal creatures.

What does it do?

Working on the assumption that your cat, dog or anacononda is unable to work even the simplest camera the Pets Eye View Camera automatically takes the pictures for them. You can set the period to every 1, 5 or 15 minutes and it holds up to 40 pictures. Included with the camera are a Lithium-ion battery and a USB cable for charging and downloading purposes.

It offers owners an insight into the lifes of their animals, you might be surprised what they get up to when your back is turned.

Value

Many pet owners would love to find out a little more about their pets day to day life, this little camera can tell a story if your pet is adventouous. Many reviews have said that their pets rarely venture out of the garden so I guess it is a judegement only the pet owner can make, will your pet be a filmstar or not? We thought the pets eye provided an interesting insight into ‘Allfluffs’ day and discovered he likes to spend a lot of time next door. We would suggest that if you don’t already have a pet you’ll have to calculate the cost of buying one of those too.

Summary

Do we love our pets? We sure do.

Do we want to see 40 pictures of our cat licking itself and stealing small pieces of food from the neighbours? Well, actually yes. Yes, we do.

If you get fed up with seeing another slideshow of the sleep/bark pointlessly/sleep/sniff around a bit variety then you could try just leaving the Pets Eye View Camera lying around when you go out and leave you spouse alone. Now that could be an interesting photo collection.

Pets Eye View Camera Review is a post from: Gadgets and gizmos

Garmin’s Astro DC 40 is available in a garish orange, which is a fairly useful visual aid for dog seeking in itself and the black GPS receiver is attached in a durable manner to one side. Garmin assures potential purchasers that the collar is comfortable for the dog as well as being convenient for the owner.

The main application of the tracking collar is for keeping tabs on hunting dogs, according to Garmin. For this reason the compatible Astra 220 receiver module which you will need to find your animal is capable of maintaining contract with ten different collared dogs simultaneously.

You can set the GPS beacons on the collars to emit location information in incremental steps between five and 120 seconds, which might make the sport of hunting a little more interesting, with modern technology on hand to help out when required.

The Astro DC tracking dog collar is powered by a battery which you can recharge using an included adapter and it should last for several hours, depending on how frequently you choose to refresh the transmission of data.

Although the collars will obviously be useful for hunters, it is easy to imagine that owners of household pets who do not want to chase after a particularly adventurous dog will end up buying this gadget in order to avoid irritation or, at worst, heartbreak.

Garmin launches pooch tracking dog collar is a post from: Gadgets and gizmos

If I told you dogs can talk you probably wouldn’t believe me, at least not if your sane, but now thanks to some very clever chaps at Takara Tomy in Japan they can, sort of.  

The Bowlingual Voice is a very cool piece of kit which analyzes your dog’s barks and translates them into real human words…. I personally think it’s amazing, Dr Doolittle eat your heart out. A basic model was released seven years ago selling 300,000 units in Japan alone and causing enough of a stir to demand a more technologically advanced evolved version. 

Focussing mainly on six areas of emotion; joy, sadness frustration etc the collar unit worn by the dog detects sound and relays the information to a hand held device, which then in turn analyzes the sounds captured and synthesis a humanised output, in aural and visual form. 

So although you’re not going to be entering any lively debates with next doors Labrador anytime soon. Dog owners will be able to view there dog’s in a whole new light. 

The gadget may seem a little limiting. I imagine a good dog owner would have a good general idea of their pets’ emotion status rendering a computerised go between pretty useless. Bearing that in mind however I still like the intention of the Bowlingual voice even if it is a gimmick, the course of increasing communication between man and mans best friend is a worthy one. A lucrative one too regarding the size of the canine market place, a good product like this could do very well. 

The bad news however is that for now the device is only for sale in Japan retailing at £129.

Gadget To Translate Dogs Barks To Human Words is a post from: Gadgets and gizmos