Infopet Indentification Recovery System of Los Angeles has come up with with a bright idea for reuniting well-heeled owners with their straying hounds: by inserting a microchip containing a reference number just under the dog’s skin, le pooch perdu, when scanned with a bar-code reader, can be linked to a central registry holding details of its owner; at the equivalent of UKP30 a whack, it doesn’t come cheap, but its a small price to pay for a happy ending, and just think of the husband-harnessing potential (may sound sexist, but wives just don’t stray in quite the same manner…)