Remotely Walk Your Dog

A dog is more or less as healthy (or unhealthy, depending on how you look at it) as its master. Don’t believe me? Take a closer look at your friend’s pooch the next time you drop by his or her place and observe closely. This is of course a generalization, and not a hard and fast rule by any means. Having said that, bringing your dog on its daily walk is essential to its well being, mentally and physically. What happens when you end up being too tired to do so, or you have just lost interest for that particular day? Well, a couple of scientists at Auburn University claim to have developed a remote control solution to walk your dog. Jeff Miller and David Bevly are part of the university’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, have developed this system that relies on a wearable doggie suit which will be equipped with a microprocessor, wireless radio, and GPS receiver.

The dog will first need to be trained to respond to commands which comprise of different vibrations and tones which will be emitted via the suit over a remote control (which is similar to a smartphone). The two researchers tout an obedience success rate of over 98%, which sounds rather nuts. Could this be ideal to help other specially trained dogs to locate missing persons, search for disaster victims, and uncover contraband? One thing’s for sure, it does carry a degree of risk of your pooch not responding to any of the commands you dish out remotely and make a dash for that rabbit across the road due to its overwhelming instinct. Then, you won’t be physically around to hold back its leash, which would be unfortunate.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Gadgets
Tags: remote control