High Concept
Introducing Dogs That Clean Up After You

2012. You’ve already had a preview. (Roland Emmerich is nothing if not a prophet.) But who knows what the actual year will bring. Personally, our fingers are crossed for this still-on-the-drawing-board gadget. Hey, beats an apocalypse.

You’ve taught your dog some neat tricks over the years.

Sit up. Beg. Open the fridge. Get a beer. No, that beer. The good beer.

He’s a pretty smart little fella.

But he still cannot master one very simple human act: bringing your floors to a high-buffed shine.

So today, we send a message to lazy dogs everywhere. It’s time you upped your game.

Prepare for a future patrolled by The Puppy Robotic Vacuum Cleaner, a litter of dirt-sucking mini vacuums that will finally make humanity’s long-held dream of having little robot puppies clean its floors a reality.

Still in its concept stage, the tiny canine cleanup crew would work pretty much like a fleet of small Roombas. Instead of one round disk, you’d have four small angular “puppies” equipped with dirt rollers, infrared lights, dust containers, strange LED faces and antennae in their tails.

These four baby vacuums would spend most of their day suckling the sweet milk of electricity from their mother power station. Then, at a designated time each day, all cleaning hell would break loose as this litter scatters about sucking up all the little dust bunnies in its path.

The only time a puppy cleans up a mess while you’re gone.