Sometimes, my dogs puke. This is because they eat everything from grass to flip flops to sheets of paper towel soiled with grease. Twice, Ruby got into a huge bag of dark green iron pills and had to get her stomach pumped. Several weeks ago, Malcolm puked out a grass-and-kibble stew, which I didn’t discover until I got home hours later. All of these incidents had left seemingly indelible stains on my carpets and couch. Enter SpotBot Pet, a not-so-little cleaning robot that claims to work any stubborn pet stain &mdash be it puke, pee, or butt juice &mdash out of carpets and upholstery. It has three modes &mdash one for surface stains, one for deeper stains, and a manual mode for use with the attached hose. The SpotBot Pet has two fluid tanks–one for a cleaner-water mix and another that dirty water gets sucked back into. Below the dirty water tank is a pair of nylon bristle brushes and little vacuum cleaner heads that simultaneously scrub stains out and suck dirt in. Its diameter is 8 inches, so any stain bigger than that might require two treatments. The SpotBot came with a trial size of Bissell’s Pet Stain & Odor advanced formula cleaner, which supposedly works for pee, puke, and butt juice. Perfect. A full cycle of the set-in stain takes about five minutes and is deafeningly loud. It didn’t bother me that much, though &mdash after spending days trying to scrub canine vomit out with soap and water and Nature’s Miracle, I was beginning to think the couch would just have to sport a puke stain motif forever. I was willing to listen to this Bot do its deed. Five minutes later: The couch was soaking wet, but the stain? Gone! It was awesome. I tried it on an area of carpet stained with pee, too, and it worked great. At $140, it’s a tad pricey and it’s heavy and loud, but it works, and it doesn’t require any manual labor other than picking the thing up and placing it on top of the stain. Product Page (Bissell) This post is part of a Theme Day: BBG on Dogs .

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Review: A puke stain with the Bissell SpotBot Pet

If you’re too lazy to walk your dog every day, you could always dish out $3000 for a Jog a Dog treadmill. Product page This post is part of a Theme Day: BBG on Dogs .

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$3000 doggie treadmill

Sony’s four-legged entertainment bot AIBO launched a decade ago. At left is a figure from patent #6458011 , which was filed in 2001 by inventors Makoto Inoue and Emi Kato: A walking-on-four-legs type robot whose body is connected at the front right, front left, rear right, and rear left with legs is adapted so that its action saves the user trouble and increases the user’s affection for, and curiosity about, the robot. I find the evolution of the artificial dog fascinating. Check out more patented pooches — from analog to animatronic, including more iterations from Sony — after the jump… [top right image via Sony ] This post is part of a Theme Day: BBG on Dogs . Patent #: D51470 Filing date: Sep 13, 1917 Issue date: Nov 1917 Inventor: CLAUDE S. HAMMOCK Assignee: NOBBYTOY COMPANY What Was New: ornamental design for a toy, substantially as shown Patent #: D72237 Filing date: Aug 6, 1926 Issue date: Mar 1927 Inventor: NEAL W. PLOOSTER What Was New: ornamental design for a toy dog, as shown Patent #: 2385914 Filing date: Apr 24, 1945 Issue date: Oct 1945 Inventor: Generale What Was New: pull toy comprising a “dog-simulating member” Patent #: D179949 Filing date: Feb 28, 1956 Issue date: Mar 1957 Inventor: Helen H. Malsed What Was New: ornamental design for an expanding/contracting toy Patent #: D186323 Filing date: Mar 27, 1959 Issue date: Oct 1959 Inventor: David M. Kinniburgh What Was New: ornamental design for an animal figure Patent #: 2909001 Filing date: Mar 12, 1956 Issue date: Oct 20, 1959 Inventor: M. I. GLASS What Was New: electrically-driven wheeled figure toy Note : design was eventually refined Patent #: D373801 Filing date: Apr 28, 1995 Issue date: Sep 17, 1996 Inventors: Keiko Doi, Masatsune Sasaki Assignees: Tomy Company, Ltd. What Was New: ornamental design for a toy figurine, as shown Patent #: D382029 Filing date: Feb 9, 1996 Issue date: Aug 5, 1997 Inventor: Simon Kat Hong Cheng Assignees: James Industries, Inc. What Was New: SLINKY dog pull toy Patent #: 6337552 Filing date: Dec 8, 1999 Issue date: Jan 8, 2002 Inventors: Makoto Inoue, Taku Yokoyama Assignee: Sony Corporation What Was New: robot apparatus capable of autonomously performing actions in natural ways Patent #: D457203 Filing date: Oct 17, 2000 Issue date: May 14, 2002 Inventors: Tomohiko Onishi, Nobata Fujio Assignees: Sega Toys, Ltd. What Was New: ornamental design for a robotic dog, as shown and described Patent #: D445849 Filing date: Jan 10, 2001 Issue date: Jul 31, 2001 Inventor: Shinya Saito Assignees: Tomy Company, Ltd. What Was New: ornamental design for the dog robot toy, as shown Patent #: 6736694 Filing date: Feb 5, 2001 Issue date: May 18, 2004 Inventors: James R. Hornsby, Marcellus R. Benson, Joseph L. McGowan, Arne A. Schmidt, William H. Bronson, Jr. Assignees: All Season Toys, Inc. What Was New: an interactive amusement device and system encompassing a primary robotic unit which performs actions communicated by a remote wireless transmitter and at least one secondary robotic unit which interacts through wireless communication with the primary robotic unit Patent #: D448433 Filing date: May 1, 2000 Issue date: Sep 25, 2001 Inventors: Mie Ueda, Tomohiko Onishi, Nobata Fujio Assignee: Sega Toys Ltd. What Was New: ornamental design for a robotic dog, as shown and described Patent #: D468375 Filing date: Apr 30, 2002 Issue date: Jan 7, 2003 Inventor: Moon-Lam So Assignee: May Cheong Toy Products Factory Limited What Was New: ornamental design for a toy dog, as shown and described Patent #: D467983 Filing date: May 8, 2002 Issue date: Dec 31, 2002 Inventor: Junko Yamazaki Assignees: Tomy Company, Ltd. What Was New: ornamental design for a dog toy, as shown and described Patent #: 7118443 Filing date: Sep 25, 2003 Issue date: Oct 10, 2006 Inventors: Jon C. Marine, Tara McGrath, Joyce Mesch, Kevin W. Gray, Ok-Soo Choi Assignees: Mattel, Inc. What Was New: animated toys adapted to imitate multiple personas Patent #: D511188 Filing date: Nov 4, 2003 Issue date: Nov 1, 2005 Inventors: Yuka Takeda, Jun Uchiyama, Kozo Kawakita, Hironari Hoshino, Daisuke Ishii, Nobuhiko Oguchi, Taku Sugawara Assignee: Sony Corporation What Was New: ornamental design for a robot, as shown (ERS- 111 , 210 , 311 ) Patent #: D537891 Filing date: Jul 15, 2005 Issue date: Mar 6, 2007 Inventors: Daniel Judkins, Endo Yoshiyuki, Fujio Nobata Assignees: Hasbro, Inc. What Was New: ornamental design for a robotic dog, as shown and described Patent #: D572319 Filing date: Jan 19, 2007 Issue date: Jul 1, 2008 Inventor: Shiu Hang Yuen Assignee: Golden Bright Manufacturer Ltd. What Was New: ornamental design for toy robot dog, as shown and described Patent #: D566794 Filing date: Sep 11, 2007 Issue date: Apr 15, 2008 Inventors: Daniel Judkins, Ceileidh Siegel Assignees: Hasbro, Inc. What Was New: ornamental design for a robotic dog, as shown and described.

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Gallery: A Visual History of The Artificial Dog

Clockwise from top left: Porter Johnson, Malcolm Keilana, Ruby Keilana, Gus Leckart, Mocha Beschizza, Tricksy Beschizza, Black Jack Putney Perhaps the most important prerequisite for being part of the BBG team is to have a puppy or two. Because we love our doggies so much, we dedicate today to stories about dogs: gadgets for dogs, robotic dogs, pictures taken by dogs, a robot that cleans puke stains, geeky dog toys, a dog tag with a motion sensor in it, advice on how to carry a lap dog and a laptop at the same time, and more. Woof! (Or, as they say in Japan, wan wan!)

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BBG on… Dogs

I just wanted to show you guys a short documentary featuring Duke Kahanamoku, the man who made recreational surfing famous. He is a native Hawaiian who lived in the early 1900s and hung out on Waikiki Beach with his friends, the Waikiki boys, at a time when Americans were just starting to escape to Hawaii for fun & sun. He is a legend well worth paying homage to on BBG surfing day.

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A bit of surf history: The Waikiki Beach Boys

If you’re like me and you hate cold water, or if you’re surfing in some ridiculously cold region of the earth, you could try out the H-Bomb, Rip Curl’s new battery-heated wetsuit. The H-Bomb uses two 120g, 7.4-volt batteries to power up a network of heated carbon fiber conductor coils to keep your core warm. It was developed by surfers and researchers who tested the suit in freezing cold places like Norway and the Arctic Circle. The Daily Stoke called it “the best wetsuit ever” and did a funny video review of it. For $1000, let’s hope so. Product page

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The H-Bomb, a battery-heated $1000 wetsuit