This week, June's been looking after Brimble, the neighbour's dog, while they're in Teneriffe. Last night, June decided to start ''Maxwell'', her Sony Aibo robot dog (there are some links on the left if you haven't seen one). Brimble went mad! He knew, deep down, it wasn't a real dog. But it moved on it's own like a dog, it looked like a dog, it made noises (but not dog ones) but . . . it didn't smell like a dog! It was fascinating to watch the real thing trying to come to terms with it's robotic counterpart. Brimble didn't know whether to try to ignore it, play with it, or kill it! We think he settled for try to kill it; nipping at it's ears and head as the robot moved and reacted to him. June fairly rapidly hit the "off" button and Maxwell was re-consigned to under the coffee table to recharge. Brimble sat watching it like a - well, like a dog - for a good half hour, just in case it moved again. Eventually he lost interest, but for a while, we considered moving Aibo to a high shelf overnight just in case.