The weird and wacky

Every Christmas at SmartCompany we look back at the year and review the wackiest new products. The other day I saw a great new addition: flavoured mineral water for pets in a fancy bottle. It capitalises on the trend towards personalising our pets into “mini-me’s”.

Then guess what I found? Inc has published its latest list of America’s weirdest products and it puts the mineral water for pets into the normal basket. How about this business in Missouri which sells testicular implants for dogs. That’s right. Aging dogs apparently can lose self-esteem as they get a bit droopy. These implants will help your dog retain its natural look. There is also a business selling animal mannequins so pet owners can practice mouth to mouth resuscitation and vets have other things to practice on than your pets.

But it doesn’t stop there. There was the business that makes plastic wishbones because turkeys only have one. There is Ultimate Taxi in Aspen which is a taxi fitted out with lasers, disco lights, synthesizers, dry ice and digital drums.

At Sarah’s Smash Shack, you can pay good money to hurl dinner plates at a wall – great for mad wives and all entrepreneurs. Or at Weight Nags you can pay to send or receive mildly abusive emails to encourage weight loss.

Got a teenager that you suspect is on drugs? Bring in Narcotic Dogs which can sniff out the drugs in your teenager’s room despite the mess. And if that teenager is always losing a sock, check out Throx, the company that sells colorful socks sold in packages of three. The Texan Lice Squad might also be useful, employing mums who can pick lice out of your kid’s hair faster than it takes for you to go out and buy the chemicals.

Apparently there is a bit of a business in sending announcements. There is the business that sends pregnancy announcements from baby in the womb to mum or dad and emails written by nutters who believe the world is ending wanting to send messages to those “left behind”.

There are some great retail businesses: send $10 to the Something store and receive… something by post. Or you can buy a large tumbleweed for $25.

We can thank the long tail created by the internet for these weird and wonderful businesses, many of which would not have survived the year without finding a global market.

Send in your entries and we’ll declare a winner on December 20.