BTW, if you hate the gallery format as much as the Grinch hated Christmas, click here.

Remote Fetch: Ball chasing is very good exercise for pooches, even if it can cause obsession and anti social tendencies that will result in thousands of dollars in dog therapy. Capable of being remote triggered at 7 or 15 second intervals, or just automatically throwing balls your dog drops in the bucket, it might be worth the trouble. Think of it as the equivalent of a video game for a dog. And it's better than a doggie treadmill, which you can't really leave a dog unsupervised on for very long. $120 [Remote Fetch]

Hotdoll:Ugh! Someone actually went and turned the hotdoll dog sex doll concept into an actual product. The doll has a silicon...nevermind. We had one at Gizmodo Gallery and one owner brought one in to see if their dog—that loves humping—would hump it. He did not. I guess just like real people, it takes a flexible sexual orientation to find comfort in inanimate figurines. Price TBD [Hotdoll on Giz]

Indiana Jones and Star Wars Dog Costumes: Remember when Indiana Jones shot that guy with the swords in Temple of Doom? What if, no, listen, wait, what if Harrison Ford was a dog and in that scene and, instead of shooting the assassin, he used teeth! And, like in Star Wars, instead of light sabers, they had swords made of bones. Oh man, hilarious! Earnestly, these costumes are the only items on this list you should legitimately buy for your dogs. Roughly $14 each. [SpoiledRottenDoggies]

Autofetch Motion Pet Ball: It looks like the famous Super Happy Fun Ball* from Saturday Night Live sketches in the 90s, and although not radioactive, the Autofetch ball acts freakishly similar. The motorized dog toy takes a cookie and then spins around, wildly, til batteries go out, or your dog goes insane and crushes the life out of it. Recommended! *Do not taunt! $27 for two. [Autofetch]

Bissell SpotBot Pet: Puppy training is basically like potty training a kid, except your whole apartment is the diaper. Here we have a steam cleaner that sprays cleaning solution to the mess on your carpet, a rotating brush that scrubs while the vacuuming action drinks—sorry, that may have not been the best choice of word—up the dirty water, storing it in a reservoir for disposal later. Basically, it's an automatic poop/vomit/pee cleaner. I'm surprised they don't make one for frat boys. $140 [Bissell]
Catgenie: Look, I know I said this whole list is a bunch of things you shouldn't buy, but this is the one you should especially not buy: CatGenie is basically an automatic literbox that takes 45 minute to cycle out the poop. Until humans engineer smarter pets that can be potty trained, there is no tech that can avoid domestic animal excrement handling. $329 [Catgenie review]

Sleepypod Air: This is a travel bag for little animals. What makes it different from other bags is that it has special deceptive fold-in panels that squash your animal while going through security checkpoints, so no one can tell you your bag is too big. (Don't worry, I don't think it'll kill your cat.) Then, after you board, it expands a few inches but fits under a chair. It also has a slot for slipping through a rolling luggage handle, so the bag can rest on top, and has seatbelt clips for placing it in car seats. $150 [Sleepypod Air]

The Hydroglass: For those who believe fish are pets, even though you can't hug them, I'd find it hard to believe you could do better than this fish tank, which has a seven-head horizontal shower on top. $14,500 [Hydroglass]

Don't forget to recommend your own favorite pet gifts in comments-include pics and pricing if possible.

All Giz Wants is our annual round-up of favorite gift ideas, including amazing attainable objects and a few far-out fantasies. We'll be popping guides catered to different interests several times per day for the next week, so keep checking back.

The Gerbil Shirt wraps your torso in plastic tube passageways, making your bod a super highway of fun for Binky and Bart. The interior surfaces are textured for traction and have air vents for easy breathing.

Also, you can run a faucet through the tubes for "easy cleaning." (It helps if the gerbils are still inside.)

As bad as the idea may be, the Gerbil Shirt is still slightly more ethical than the inevitable follow-up, Gerbil Pants. [Patently Absurd via tywkiwdbi via Neatorama via OhGizmo!]

The point of the Autofetch Motion Pet Ball is to stick some pet treats inside, activate the internal gyro-drive, and let the ball spin around to entertain and reward your pet. Well, at least I think you're supposed to use it for your pet, because one of the two "frequently asked questions" listed on the product page is a bit odd:

Can I use this motion ball with my pet Rabbit or Pig or Iguana?

Yes, it can be used with any pet, child, or adult human.

I really want to give whoever wrote that the benefit of the doubt and assume that the intent is to say that it's safe for kids to use the toy to play with their pets and that they're not encouraging shoving Halloween candy in there and watching a kid chase after the ball. Although maybe that could be fun to watch. [China Vision via Red Ferret via Wired]

Interested in seeing this thing for yourself? Come on into the Giz Gallery when it opens on Wednesday. And bring your dog, too. I still have doubts that any dog would actually go to town on this thing, so I'll tell you what: if your dog has sex with the sex doll for dogs, you'll win a prize. No raffle for you! If you own a shameless dog, you can skip to the front of the prize line. Prizes include camcorders and laptops, not the throwaway stuff. We have to be able to get the carnal act on video, because we are gross and need proof.

Also, admit it, you're a little curious.

Gizmodo Gallery 2009
Groupe
267 Elizabeth Street
New York, NY 10012

Gallery Dates:
September 23rd-27th

Times:

9/22 Tuesday
Media Day by appointment only. For info please contact gallery@gizmodo.com.

9/23 Wednesday
12-8

9/24 Thursday
12-8

9/25 Friday
12-8
8-? Reader Meetup

9/26 Saturday
11-8
9-? - Live Musical Performance

9/27 Sunday
11-6

Read more about our Giz Gallery 09 here, follow @gizgallery on Twitter and see what else we'll be playing with at the event. And special thanks to Toyota's Prius — without their sponsorship, there would be no Gizmodo Gallery.

Quite similar to a WowWee Rovio, the Pet Care Robot (concept) is a Wi-Fi controlled bot that can serve as your remote eyes and ears from a web interface. But what's a bit different than a Rovio is that this robot allows you to play fetch through a remote controlled ball you can steer around the house—all while nurturing your animal through a built-in speaker in the robot's base.

Also of note, the Pet Care Robot has two large eyes that any dog will love to chew into a slobbery gum. (Those protective eyelids, though good in theory, are a lot less durable than rawhide, shoes or the rest of the items your pet will be munching on while you're away.)

Still, there are times I'd like to check in on my little hellcat when I'm out for an evening. And if I had a tool to torment her at the same time, all the better. [MintPass via Geeky Gadgets via DVICE]

Now with Kooky Chew Human Dog Food, you can succumb to temptation and indulge in the succulent but crunchy world of kibble. And you even get a bundled bowl to complete the experience.

2 and 1/2 ounces of crunchy cookies come in every $1.49 pack (cheap!), coupled with a delectable candy bone that's almost as delicious looking as a raw hide. It's my greatest wish that adding a bit of water to the mix will produce a frothy beef gravy. But if not, I guess that's why God gave us Manwich. [Stupid via Nerd Approved]

The DoggieLoveDoll is by a different designer, but this one is actually real. It's shaped like a dog and, yes, has a butthole for your dog to go to town on.

It's marketed towards dogs who are left home alone a lot, but man, can't you just get your dog a chew toy? This just ain't right. [Baltimore Sun]

The Dream Cat Venus is coming to Japan this month for $110. Both touch and sound sensitive, the Venus (no relation to the planet or the feminine razor) reacts to your petting and talking with a proper amount of nudging and purring. And like the Sony Aibo, the Dream Cat can actually "see" through its camera-enabled eyes.

But does this poor robot need to look like the product from a My First Taxidermy kit? Drop the realism for a moment, Sega, and let these helpless kittenbots out of your dungeon in the uncanny valley. Such amoral plush tactics may work fine to tease the buffets of Melmac, but no one wants to see Japan become Melmac...any more than it already has. [Sega Toys (pdf) via CrunchGear]

Back in 2002, TakaraTomy released a device called the Bowlingual, which claimed to translate a dog's barking into human dialect you could read from a screen. Now, 7 years later, the company has updated Bowlingual to include vocalization—you know, like a text-to-speech GPS but for an animal discussing the merits of eating one's own feces.

It's a Japan-only toy, so the voice of the American dog movement will continue to go unheard. But do what we do and just assume that your dog is perpetually trying to warn you that the old mill is burning down. Better safe than sorry. [TakaraTomy via technabob via pocket-lint]The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Steven from Boing Boing Gadgets recently tried the system out with his pug Gus, and I don't quite see the point of it all.

So what does it track? "Average Power Correlate" (APC), which the company claims is a "correlation based on empirical measurement." In other words, a relative measure of the amount of energy that accumulates in the tag's accelerometer. Thus, the charted numbers themselves are rather meaningless, which was a bummer in that I was unable to make any comparison(s) to my own level of fitness, distance traveled, etc.

Yeah I think I'll just keep my $150, thanks very much. [Boing Boing Gadgets]

Despite connecting to your outdoor plumbing lines, the PowerLoo is not a backyard doggie toilet. The PowerLoo is a backyard crap flusher (read: you pick up dog crap then place it in the toilet). And while I'm sure it adds some level of convenience to doodie disposal, the $1000 price is on par with one of those fancy, Japanese toilets that literally air dries the cellulite from your butt. Coming this June. [PowerLoo via Treehugger via DVICE]

On one hand, kittens are organic lifeforms, presumably loyal to other organic lifeforms. On the other, kittens grow into cats. And for thousands of years, cats have refused to follow the human code.

What I postulate is a future in which there is a sort of war trifecta. It will be Man vs. Machine vs. Kittens. And with the feline world showing up as an insane wild card, anything can happen...though in the immortal words of John Connor, the outcome is most likely that, "We are dead!! We are all dead!! Because of kittens!!!" [Cute Overload]

Machines Behaving Deadly: A week exploring the sometimes difficult relationship between man and technology.

Ward is a photographer of pets for Fat Orange Cat Studios. The photos are ok. But she's got some good advice over there:

I also almost always shoot in burst mode, usually in slow burst at 2 to 3 frames per second.

I end up doing a lot of gymnastics during a shoot. I'm crouching, kneeling, on my back, on my side, waking up sore the next morning.

I sort of treat my still camera as a video camera. Even if I'm not actively shooting, and even if the subject is not doing something "capture-worthy," I continue tracking through the viewfinder and recomposing. Because soon enough they will do something capture-worthy, and I'll be ready to press the shutter the second it happens.

Treats, ham, roast beef, squeaky toys, patience. With dogs, I like making meowing sounds. Seems to get their attention every time, and as a bonus, they give the quizzical head tilt. It's a little trickier with cats because if you make an attention-making noise more than even once, they will ignore you thereafter.

Damn cats.

I am reminded, reading all of this, of how insane pet owners are, and how a the professional pet photographer is an unsung hero of portraiture. Their subjects are only somewhat less difficult than what Annie Leibovitz has to deal with when photographing rock and movie stars.

There is the greater question of why people don't just buy nice DSLRs and take photos of their own pets. But I suppose all the tricks and tips in here—far greater in number and substance than you'd assume a list could be for mere humans—are the answer. [NYT]

Only Japan would come up with the Sum, a robotic trash can designed by Tohoku Kankyo. Simply open the poor dog's mouth, put in pet poop and old food, and using some "fancy bio substance" it'll break it down and make it not stinky. It can handle about 600 grams of poop or food per day, which is more poop than I'd want put in my mouth per day, but I'm no robotic trash can.

The Sum can be yours for the perfectly reasonable price of $900. [Sum via Japan Probe]

Because no humans besides the flight crew are allowed—and because there aren't exactly effective seat-belts that'll keep your pets from wrecking havoc on the plane—your dogs and cats will still have to travel locked up in a carrier. But at least they'll be seated in the main cabin with temperatures that are "just right," with fresh circulating airways away from the cargo hold. After all, says the cheesy announcer, "Our pets are not luggage... They're paw-sengers!" Get it?

Pet Airways will begin service this coming July, in limited runs from LA, Chicago and NYC, starting at $150 for a one-way ticket—actually not a lot more than what the airlines charge to stick your cat in the cargo hold. [Pet Airways via Laughing Squid]

It's pretty cool, I guess. I mean, it's more convenient than having your phone get a text every time the cat goes in or out. Even easier, however, would be just not giving a shit whether or not your cat was going in or out and just focusing on your job instead of allowing yourself to be distracted by this crap.

If only the guy made Twitter a viable business plan. That would be impressive. Speaking of which, don't forget to follow us on Twitter—we want to be your friends![Switched via UberGizmo]