The dog rental business started off as one of those crazy Japanese trends that Americans couldn't quite believe really existed. In Japan everybody has mind-blowing electronics, wears eyelash wigs, competes on wacky gameshows like live Tetris. And, oh yeah, they rent out dogs for $19 an hour or $100 a day.

An American company FlexPetz has tried to copy the formula here, staring with a small office in Iowa. No, just kidding. Where would someone start the Zipcar of dogs but in Los Angeles and New York? They claim they are for people who don't have the time or pet-friendly apartment for a real dog but the more popular theory is they're for singles who want to pick someone up.

FlexPetz tracks their dogs with GPS and says they use rescue dogs "where possible." The dogs in their pictures all seem to be purebreds, but FlexPetz tells the stories of some that come from shelters or were given up by owners. By all accounts they take great care of their dogs. What these dogs' emotional life is like after work, I'm not sure.

A while back I wrote about the growing market for special products to help senior dogs. Our pets are living longer and just like people they're spending more of their lives dealing with senior ailments. Pet suppliers are just now catching onto this trend and giving people the tools they need to help older dogs stay more active and comfortable.

Back in May I was still on a quest to find the most important piece of equipment for a senior dog -- or at least a senior dog who lives with stairs. That's a harness. As dogs get older, especially certain breeds and mixed breeds like shepherd or lab, they often lose muscle and nerves in their back end. (And these dogs, my vet tells me, don't suffer a lot of pain because they've lost some feeling.) Others have it worse with arthritis or hip dysplasia.

Whichever condition your dog has, odds are he's going to need help getting up the stairs.

Since May I've tried all the different kinds of harnesses. I'm sure each dog has his own preferences and special conditions, but here's what I found:

If you are one of those dog owners who sometimes "forgets" to pick up after his dog, your poop could be coming back to bite you.

Poop DNA technology (I am not kidding) is allowing city workers in Petah Tikva, Israel clean up the dog crud. Pet owners throughout the city are being asked to bring their dogs in for DNA sampling. In a six-month trial program, poop left in city parks will be collected and tested, and the owners may be hit with fines if their dog is a match.

In business school, I worked with a classmate to develop a (we thought -- and still do!) revolutionary pooper scooper. As part of our "user needs testing," I stalked the central city parks of Philadelphia, watching dog owners pick up after their dogs. It was far harder task than I expected, as 90% of the owners I viewed left the poop behind. One day I brought a prototype to the park. I looked around surreptitiously before picking up several pieces of other people's dog poop. Now that's a vigilante act you don't often see...

I'd just like to make a suggestion to the city leaders in Philadelphia: pay attention! You're missing out on a huge revenue opportunity here.

Quick, name one thing that would make your loved one more able to cope with living in a nursing home. If you said, "having a pet with him," then you'll want to keep reading.

When my father entered a nursing home 4 years ago, I had a recurrent fantasy. I would adopt a small, elderly dog - something about the size of a Pomeranian - and move it into his room, accompanied by a litter box. I would have been willing to go in everyday to change the litter. That's how much of a difference an old dog would have made for my old father in those last lonely years of his life. A dog on his lap in the wheelchair, sharing his meals from the tray, sleeping next to him through the night - would have made his life worth living.

When people suffer financially, their animals face hardship, too. At the beginning of the year the Humane Society warned about about shelters being overwhelmed. Dogs and cats were losing their families when those families lost their homes. Now we're hearing about all kind of animals suffering in the financial downturn. Basically any animal that depends on humans is a little bit less secure.

Dogs and Cats
Shelters around the country report a surge of animals surrendered. Some have surely been forced into the situation, but lots of animals seem to be cast out as if they were impractical luxury goods. In Los Angeles, an 11-year-old shepherd was left scared in the shelter; the Animal Shelter of Sterling, MA, tells the Worcester Telegram that they haven't seen this many surrendered animals in 15 years; dogs in Dallas are being dumped on the side of the road. And, as I wrote about earlier, some people cruelly abandoned their pets in the house as a way to inflict suffering on the bank -- never mind what it did to the animal.

There's that often-repeated saying that Harry Truman made famous: "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog."

Perhaps presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama is thinking ahead. He reportedly has promised his daughters that after the election this November, they'll get a family dog. That is, at least, what I've learned from the well regarded Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, which is also the nation's largest sanctuary for dogs. They've been circulating an email, which is being forwarded across the country, and was forwarded to me by a cousin of mine -- heck, maybe you've already read it -- that urges people to sign a petition asking Mr. Obama to get a dog from a shelter or a rescue group rather than a pet store.

As the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary explains, "With millions of homeless pets still being killed in shelters every year, please adopt your dog from a shelter or rescue group. Don't buy from a pet store or breeder."

They've gone as far as creating a web site, www.obamafamilydog.com, where they're asking people to sign this petition.

Leona Helmsley's reputation for her dealing with her fellow man is, let's just say, not the best. She spent time in the pen for tax evasion and, in an incident recounted by famed attorney Alan Dershowitz, treated a waiter rather rudely: he brought her tea and a tiny bit dripped onto the saucer, and Ms. Helmsley pick up the cup, smashed it on the floor, and demanded that he get down on his knees and beg for his job.

But the Associated Press is reporting that she has left $8 billion -- the bulk of her fortune -- to be used to help care for dogs. Her trustees will decide the specifics of how the money is spent.

Her less than kind reputation aside, her gift is many, many times the total annual giving for dogs in the entire world -- $8 billion will change the world for dogs. If you're a lover of dogs, you have to consider Ms. Helmsley a hero.

When our sons were 6 and 9, without too much resistance from their father, I decided to get them a dog. It wasn't exactly what they were asking for. This wasn't one of those situations where the children beg and the all-wise parent says, "When you're old enough to take care of the dog ..." I knew who was going to take care of the dog. Anyway, no one else was thinking about one. The older son had his hopes set on the newest Playstation. The younger son was afraid of dogs, which was the clincher. The grandson of a man who had served in Army Canine during World War II wasn't going to be afraid of dogs.

I started with the ASPCA and the Animal Rescue League. It was slim pickings for puppies that year, so I expanded my horizons to the classifieds. I found the litter about an hour from home - mongrel puppies, their father a yellow Labrador, the mother a Shepherd-something. There were 9 of them and they were $40 each. I wanted a female, I told the owner, would Saturday be soon enough? She thought that it would be since the ad had just run for the first time. Just to be sure, I left my phone number. I wasn't surprised when she called back the next day to tell me that the puppies were going fast. She'd selected a female for us and outfitted her with a green collar.

Who says an old dog can't learn new tricks?

According to the Arizona Republic, the giant pet store chain, PetSmart, which is headquartered in Phoenix and has 1,000 stores throughout North America, among others in Europe, is offering some new services in their stores. The stores have been unrolling a "doggy day camp," where you can drop off their dog for the day while you go to work guilt-free, or if you're taking a vacation, you can board them overnight at the PetsHotel, which according to the newspaper article, "includes dessert and a belly rub."

I have to say, reading about the belly-rub stopped me in my tracks at first. All I could think was, "a belly rub isn't free? And just one?" But I'll give PetSmart the benefit of the doubt that that "belly rub" is just a minimum guarantee that at the very least, your dog will get that. I'm sure if a staff member starts to rub a beagle's belly, a manager isn't going to say, "Hey, Stan, that dog has had its TLC quota. You're giving him an unsanctioned belly rub."

Survey results released last month at the North American Veterinary Conference showed that pet owners are more likely to cut back on other monthly expenses before skimping on care or supplies for their pets.

The online survey of 665 pet owners (including 602 who have a dog or cat) was conducted in late December by Fleishman-Hillard International Communications, "to help give our animal care clients better insight into how changes in the economy might affect their plans for 2008," said Brian Cox, Fleishman-Hillard senior vice president, quoted in a Reuters article about the survey.

According to the Associated Press, "There are more than 70 million dogs in the United States, and they account for a good chunk of the nearly $3 billion pet owners spend each year on grooming and boarding, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association."

A recent AP story looks at the rise of self-service dog wash centers -- For $8 to $17 at these places, you can take Fluffy and give him a bath. In someone else's tub. With someone else's soap/towels.

It's a good compromise for people who don't want to spend the $35 or more on a professional groomer, but also don't have the facilities to bathe an Alaskan Malaumte in their homes, or don't want dog hair clogging up their drains.

If you're like me, you often find yourself tempted to spend more money on holiday gifts for your four-legged furry friends than your relatives. I know I have a lot more fun watching Maggie and Ramsey playing with their rubber balls with biscuits in the middle (called Kongs -- a great but expensive gift for the dog in your life) than I would watching my dad put together a new grill or inflatable New England Patriots chair.

But there could be trouble on the horizon: With all the talk about recalls of imported children's toys with high lead-levels, almost nothing has been said about dog toys!

And it turns out that there are no legal standards for lead levels or anything else in in pet toys -- and the Consumer Products Safety Commission says it lacks jurisdiction over pet issues, and can only intervene if the health of the owner if being effected. However a lot of pet stores test their products anyway.