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Russian President Vladimir Putin is considering buying a satnav dog collar for his labrador, Connie, in case she gets lost, the country's deputy prime minister revealed Monday.
"When can I get a system for my dog, Connie, so she can't go too far astray?", Putin asked Sergey Ivanov, when the deputy PM presented plans for launching three new satellites.
"Dog collars will be in the shops from July 2008," Ivanov replied in all seriousness, according to the news agency Itar-Tass.
The Russian rocket Proton-K is due to launch three new satellites into orbit on Christmas Day to facilitate Russia's GLONASS navigation system. They will bring to 18 the total number of satellites mapping Russian territory.
Ultimately it is planned to have 24 satellites in orbit from 2009.
The GLONASS system was developed by the Russian army in the 1980s, in competition with the US GPS network, and the European Galileo system.
