Last Christmas, The Girl begged and begged and begged for an iDog, which is a delightful little thing that dances to music either heard on its microphone or received from a audio input cable.

She played with it once or twice, but quickly lost interest. It’s pretty stupid, and requires a lot of attention before it does anything interesting.

Earlier this week, The Girl and The Boy were fighting over it, so I brought it to work and plugged it into my desktop speakers. It is very weird. It whimpers occasionally, apparently when it doesn’t like my music. It dances to stuff it likes. It blinks its lights in seemingly random patterns. It chirps and flashes green when you pat its head. It growls when you tweak its tail.

Here’s the complete documentation, just in case you care.

When I was a kid, toys didn’t come with 16-page users manuals. Sheesh.