As is my habit I get up early every morning. This is in part as I always have been an early riser but whether this is a function of my physiology or whether it is because I always have had dogs that get up in the early hours I do not know. My current family canines wake up with the water boiler so adjusting the boiler time ensures we get an extra hour sleep even if the early morning shower is a bit on the tepid side but even so we are invariably up before seven doing our perambulation of the district.

Nowadays if people want a dog they have a choice, either they could get the traditional living and breathing variety or they can get a robot. The latest batch of robotic quadrupeds will set you back the thick end of US$1,700 but you get a fair amount of “dogginess” for the money.

Genibo, the robot dog, will express its mood, search its surroundings and generally interact with the owner. Apparently it has seven emotions which are happiness, pleasure, boredom, sleepiness, surprise, anger and sadness.

This sounds a bit too many to me as my real dog expresses hunger, more hunger and hungriest regardless of how much it has eaten in the last few hours. This is pretty constant behaviour but with Genibo it has a much more refined behavioural paradigm.

Apparently the robotic dog will gradually form a character and intelligence (real dog has bags of character but not sure about the intelligence), its mood can get better or worse (real dogs mood definitely depends on number of hours since last feeding) and the robot dog will get more or less intimate depending on the owners level of attention over time (real dog will definitely get more frantic should I not feed it on time and will insist on sitting on my lap if it is cold).

However, should you think a robotic dog is better house trained than a real one then be warned. Genibo will, it says, “when searching the surroundings, the Genibo goes around, peeing, sniffing, digging, and showing interest in objects nearby.”

Notice the “peeing”, quite how a robotic dog pees I have no idea. Robotics are advanced but anyone knows that should a robotic quadruped cock its leg it would fall over, or maybe it is a female pseudo-dog!

Genibo also likes exercise so no real change there then. No, I think I will keep the real dog if for no other reason it sports a fur coat whereas the Genibo only has a plastic shell.