> I'm not sure I buy Sam's argument that cleaning up poop is part of the joys of dog ownership.

Definitely not the point I was making. The point I was making is that the process of caring for a pet -- which is largely made up of the nuisances of feeding, bathing, grooming, cleaning, etc, that the proposed strain of robo-dogs would eliminate -- is a large and probably critical part of what drives the emotional bond between the owner and the pet, which, in turn, is mostly what makes pet ownership a rewarding experience.

I can sympathize with an argument that mess-cleaning may be safely excluded from the list of nuisances required to preserve the nature of the owner-pet relationship. But my response to that is that "like real dog, but less of a nuisance" is an objective that, when you pursue it very far, quickly undermines what's satisfying about an owning a real dog.