It’s an environmentalist-eat-dog world where the treehuggers’ latest target is not the hummer or Texas oil men, but poor defenseless pets. That’s right – now they’re saying that you should eat your pets rather than take them on vacation.

Dog's day out

A book by Robert & Brenda Vale, called ‘Time to Eat the Dog?: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living,’ suggests that dogs and cats have very big eco-paw prints. The book says that the amount of food a dog eats in one year takes up around 1.1 hectares of land.

Measure that against a 6,213 mile (10,000 km) road trip in a 4.6 liter Land Cruiser, which only takes up .41 hectares of land. Basically, what they’re saying is that you can take 3 roadtrips of 6,213 miles each every year, if you stick a fork in your pet.

The Vales suggest in the book that pets should be recycled for pet food. Imagine the horror, if your precious Persian finds that you have turned it into a cannibal. It’s like something out of a Stephen King book.

And that’s not all. The authors would also have you give up your own vacations, shopping trips and other leisure activities, in addition to cooking up your pets. Apparently the authors are exempt from all this, and they describe their own lifestyle – which includes a trip to Japan and ownership of a cat.

The Vales are eccentric enough to suggest that you shouldn’t go through with a divorce until you find someone else, so that you don’t need separate homes. But the authors apparently have no problems buying a new house.

Hopefully, there won’t be people screwy enough to listen to this pair of nutjobs and actually give up their pets, vacations, or vacations with your pets to luxury dog hotels. These are not luxuries - once you get a pet, you’ll realize that they’re just as necessary as taking care of your grandma.

Photo by br1 ~ br1dotcom

The W is for woof.

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to stay at the W Hotel in beautiful San Diego.  My mixed feelings on that will come out in a later post.  Hey, that’s like suspense!

On the corner outside of the hotel’s main entrance you will find this water station for your canine companion, which is a nice touch.  Downtown San Diego is great for walking, which means yours dogs bark and your dogs get thirsty.

Seeing as right inside the lobby the price of water jumps up about $6 per bottle, you may want to sneak a sip or two for yourself.  It’s a recession, people.

Photo by Whit Honea

For more family-friendly (what? dogs are family!) travel photos visit DeliciousBaby’s Photo Fridays.

Just when you think its time to play and create havoc while your master or mistress is off enjoying the Hawaiian beaches, along comes a party pooper – the Petcare Robot.

Petcare Robot

The Mint Robot #2: The Petcare Robot is the latest in bleeding edge technology for remote pet surveillance and interaction. Unfortunately, it looks like a wacky reject dumped by the special-effects team of a Steven Speilberg film.

But I suppose that’s what makes it so interesting to goofy cats and dogs who can smell conspiracy and alien intruders even in a chewy toy.

Not only can you monitor your pets remotely, you can also scare the living daylights out of them by bringing the Petcare Robot to life. Well, see, that’s why it’s called a robot.

The robot can be set to track your pet, and it will roll around behind your pet, following it everywhere and driving your pet batty. You can enjoy the show remotely as your pet goes nuts trying to shake off the persistent stalker.

It even has infra-red LEDs, so you can keep tabs even in the dark. And even worse, those weird-looking googly eyed camera lenses – they can detect if a pet tries to lick or scratch, and they’ll clam shut automatically.

That ball you see at the bottom can be moved around remotely, and you can send it rolling and talk to your pet through the Robot’s remote control  – play recorded sounds, music or your own voice commands.

If the Petcare Robot catches on, you’ll soon be sitting on the white sandy beaches of Hawaii playing with your pet back home, instead of enjoying the oceanview. Please don’t buy this thing and spoil your pet’s one and only chance to enjoy some downtime away from you.

Photo credit - Mintpass

As you may have heard in my critically acclaimed (moms are like critics) podcast regarding travel with children (and pets), it’s always nice to make a pit stop count.

This is how we do it.  Get outside and stretch their legs and their imagination.  Also, run an unofficial tally on the local number of ladybugs.

For more family-friendly travel photos visit DeliciousBaby’s Photo Fridays.

Photo by W. Honea