Pets

According to 'WiredNews.com,' researchers at MIT are developing a special collar system that allows owners to monitor their dogs' social life! The system, known as SNIF stands for 'social networking in fur'. And it's a collar that lets owners figure out which neighborhood dogs their pooch likes to play with.

So how does SNIF work? It's pretty simple. The owner puts the collar   which is equipped with tiny sensors - on their dog before going out for a walk or to a dog park. Then, the collar records data while the dog is out walking or playing. The collar takes note of which dogs your pooch plays with the most, and which dogs seem hostile or unfriendly. However, the collar can only record doggie data if the other pooches are also wearing a SNIF collar.

Then, once you and Fido get home, you can plug the collar into your computer and analyze the data. You can look at profiles of the dogs your pooch liked   and hated   which are put up by dog owners who also own a SNIF system.

If one of the dogs on the network seems friendly - and your pooch's collar says he spent a lot of time with them   you can e-mail the owner and set up a doggie play date.

While the system isn't available yet, researchers are pretty close to perfecting the collar, and plan to have the SNIF website up and running very soon/ We'll keep you posted on further developments.

I can just picture it now. 'Fido met Fluffy through the SNIF network, and according to the collar, it was love at first bark.'