Pet rocks

In April 1975, advertising executive Gary Dahl was in a bar listening to his friends complain about their pets. This gave him the idea for the perfect "pet": a rock.  A rock would not need to be fed, walked, bathed, groomed and would not die, become sick, or be disobedient. He said they were to be the perfect pets, and joked about it with his friends.  However, he eventually took the idea seriously, and drafted an "instruction manual" for a pet rock. It was full of puns, gags and plays on words that referred to the rock as an actual pet. The original had no eyes.   It came with an instruction booklet and around 1.5 million were sold.

I'm not talking about that kind of pet rock.   I'm talking about a pet rock in the same way you would say pet bedding or pet food.   In other words a rock for a pet, not as a pet.   My pet rock is a kennel of sorts.   Simply cut a hole in the flat side of boulder G, available in sandstone, grey, black and granite and a range of signal colours.   www.artificialrocks.co.uk

St Andrews Aquarium in Scotland have just ordered a number of these to use as penguin nesting boxes for their Humboldt penguins.

Pet rock (simulated image)

Boulder G from another angle