Poo-Chi Friends: Poodle
Poodle is an interactive robot dog sold by Tiger Electronics as a member of the "Poo-Chi Friends" toy line, which only consisted of this robotic poodle and a robot bulldog. It was sold as Lu-Chi (ルーチ) in Japan by Sega Toys, and was scheduled for release by the company in late February 2001, for 2,980 yen. When Sega Toys sold it, they did not refer to it as a "Poo-Chi Friends" toy, like how Tiger did. Like Poo-Chi, Poodle requires three AAA batteries to function.
While the box and manual don't refer to it as a "Poo-Chi Poodle", an official press kit for the U.K. refers to the toy as such.
Appearance
Poodle is similar to Poo-Chi, but with some differences. The visor is more crescent-shaped, the shape of the head is slighly different, the top and lower parts of its ears are rounded, and the tip of its tail is flower-shaped.
Poodle was sold in a pink and purple colorway by Tiger Electronics, however, Sega Toys sold Poodle in a silver and pink colorway in Japan.
Features
She has the same interactive features as Poo-Chi.
She can sit, stand, or lean back and forth while flapping her ears, wagging her tail, and moving her mouth. The eyes in her visor light-up red and change expressions.
She has a light sensor in her snout, which you can activate by waving your hand past it, and a sound sensor which is activated when you clap your hands or make a loud sound near her. She also has a magnetic sensor which is activated when you hold her bone infront of her mouth to simulate feeding.
Like Poo-Chi, she has a "biorhythm" which functions in the same manner. Her biorhythm has eight stages, each of which last for about half an hour. At level 1, she is mostly unhappy, but at level 8, she is much happier and will sing special songs.
She sings up to six songs, two of which are "Wedding March" and "Ode to Joy". I don't recognise the rest.
Prototypes
Only one prototype seems to have been publicly documented.
It has a larger snout and there are holes beneath its snout, unlike the released version. The left and right sides of its visor are much more curved.
Gallery
In some photos, the tail is missing. If yours came without a tail, then the tail broke off at some point.
