France's first automatic dog washing machine

Fed up of the struggle involved in washing your pooch when it returns muddy and smelly from a walk in the forest?

Tired of having to clean the bathroom after you've perhaps wrestled with an unwilling dog intent on escaping as you, shampoo in one hand, shower head in the other, succeed only in flooding the place?

Or simply no longer willing to make regular and sometimes costly trips to a specialist groomer to have your faithful four-legged friend washed and blow-dried?

Help is finally at hand in the shape of Shower Dog Corner - a washing machine for man's best friend - now available in France.

Shower Dog Corner (screenshot TV Sud report)

Actually it has been up and running since March, but it was only this past week that the cameras of the local station TV Sud made their way to Montpellier to see how it works.

All right the Japanese have been doing it to their hounds - and cats come to that -  for some time, and pet owners in other countries have also been getting in on the act.

But it's apparently a first in France, a salon in Montpellier which offers a half-hour session in, what to all intents and purposes is, a dog washing machine.

The creator of Shower Dog Corner, Eduardo Segura, is Spanish and it was while watching a television report on its success in Spain that Mauro Balbis hit on the idea of introducing it on to the French market.

"I saw a report on "30 millions d'amis" and I got in touch with Eduardo," Balbis told TV Sud.

"When I went to see him and saw how the machine worked and how simple it was, I was won over."

So much so that he ordered one and set up shop.

Mauro Balbis (screenshot TV Sud report)

The whole process takes less than half an hour. You simply put your dog in the machine, close the door (of course) choose the programme and pay your money before sitting back to watch Fido spin.

No, of course that's not what happens - not the rotating part anyway.

Rather the dog is automatically sprayed with water and shampoo for just four minutes and then blow-dried for the remaining time.

Just in case you're worried, the machine is both SPA and veterinary school-approved, uses less water than would be required during a session at a conventional parlour and doesn't get rid or the protective grease contained in the fur.

It's also best for big dogs and "those of a nervous disposition" who might be refused entry to a more conventional parlour.

If, for some reason, Fido doesn't look too happy or begins to panic, you can always open the door and let the poor thing out.

Right Mrs Kipling, in the car. We're off to Montpellier.

Mrs Kipling?

Mrs Kipling

Insolite : Lavomatique pour chien à Montpellier par TVSud

The Golden girls

Many years ago, not quite in a previous life, I kept chickens.

Actually I'm planning to again. The "Hen palace" has been built (not by my own not-so-fair hand, I hasten to add). It was finished months ago. All that's required now are the occupants to take up residence.

But I digress.

The brood of chickens - if it can be called that - was not exactly enormous. Just four, bought from a local farmer at around seven weeks and named after the characters in that long-running US comedy show the Golden Girls: Dorothy, Sophia, Blanche and Rose.

Theirs was meant to be a long and happy free-range life but sadly for three of them it was cut short by the unwanted attentions of a couple of my cockers.

Now they might not be the brainiest dogs around (add as many exclamations marks as you wish and don't hold back on the observation that dogs apparently often resemble their owners - or vice versa) but they are on the whole loving and tender creatures.

Unfortunately as I was to discover at the cost of three of the hens, their natural hunting instincts remained intact.

It was probably my fault for not having closed the gate to the pen properly, but one day I heard an almighty excited yelping from the dastardly duo and on rounding the corner, I discovered the scene of fowl play.

Dorothy, Sophia and Blanche lay bloodied and dead on the ground. Only Rose had escaped, unharmed.

Not the most propitious start, but I couldn't leave Rose alone now, could I? So another trip to the farmer and three more hens to replace those that were no longer with us.

Meanwhile I had learnt my lesson. The new arrivals remained unnamed (just to avoid soppy attachment) and the dogs were introduced slowly to them with an ever watchful eye and a barking command should they approach too close.

Fast forward a month or so and the eggs started coming.

But something didn't seem quite right - at least not with Rose.

Was she somehow still mourning the loss of her previous three companions?

Could that be the explanation for her more guarded and slightly less friendly comportment?

Whereas the other three would happily come when called (it was the period in my life when "cluck" became a regular part of my early morning vocabulary) she held back, seemingly eyeing me up with a look of disdain.

Was it it possible, I asked myself, for chickens to show contempt? Or was I just simply anthropomorphising.

But there was something else bothering me about Rose.

She was bigger, broader and altogether more masculine looking than the others, with a comb and a wattle to match that made her appear...well, different from the others.

And then it happened.

One morning I heard the distinctive dawn crowing and it seemed to be coming from MY hen house.

I charged downstairs to let the birds out and sure enough - Rose continued her call.

"She" of course was a "he" and had been all along.

It was just my inexperienced eye that had failed to acknowledge earlier what would probably have been patently obvious to anyone else; that Rose had been missexed.

Somehow I never quite got used to the idea of Rose being a "he" although that's most definitely what she was.

She proved it all the time, defending her girls and chasing the (now fully deferential) dogs around the garden. Oh yes how the proverbial tables had turned.

Gradually though, both Rose's aggression towards anything or anyone who came near her and the demands of her sexual appetite on the other three made her something of a handful, and not one I could manage.

So with a heavy heart I decided she had to go.

Not to the pot mind you. I'm sufficiently squeamish not to be able eat something I've named and raised.

Instead Rose took early retirement with the same local farmer from whom I had bought her on condition that she be allowed to live out her days ruling the roost - just elsewhere.

So Rose, this one's in memory of you. Perhaps not entirely appropriate as there was most definitely nothing "3e sexe" about you.

Toutou rista - the Doggie Doo poop-scooping game in France

Not sure how to keep the children entertained at Christmas?

Well family games manufacturer Goliath thinks it has the answer with the release in France of Toutou rista.

Toutou rista (screenshot from promotional video)

It's the French version of the same game launched on an unsuspecting German, Spanish and Dutch market last year.

In Germany, under the name of Kackel Dackel it was a huge hit with the promotional video going viral.

None the wiser?

Well perhaps the English name will give the game (sorry) away as it's also being released in the United Kingdom and The United States under the name of Doggie Doo.

It's a game which "aims to teach children how to take care of dogs with poop-scooping gameplay" and French toy industry magazine La revue du jouet named it best infant toy game in France for 2011.

"Feed and walk your little pup, when he makes a mess you clean it up," says the game's manufacturer, Goliath.

"The first player who has 3 pieces of dog mess on his shovel wins the game."

The rules are simple although they include the rather...er...worrying extra remark, "You can only pick up the dog’s mess when it has fallen on the table. When it is hanging outside the end of the dog, just tap him on the back until it drops."

Charming!

Enough said.