For you pet lovers who can’t stand not knowing how Snowball’s doing without you, or wondering if your babysitter does nothing but eat your food and text her girlfriends, Panasonic has a gadget just for you: the BL-C131A PetCam Network Camera.

The PetCam is called a “Network Camera” because it connects directly to the Internet. That means you don’t have to hook it to a computer to use it. Access to a Web browser at the mall or on your smartphone will get you access to the video from this camera.

The PetCam can pan (move left and right) and tilt (up and down), and re-focus on any part of the picture. It has the ability, via a Privacy mode, to be controlled only by you (should a hacker, for instance, gain control through the Internet). It can also be set to record at a certain time of day.

One of its coolest features, for my money, is the built-in heat sensor. Through this technology, the PetCam can sense when a person or animal enters the room in which it’s located, and start taking pictures. Perfect for making sure Tommy’s doing his Geometry homework, or letting you observe in full color as Scruffy, the 210-pound Mastiff, devours the leftovers off the kitchen table that Tommy forgot to put away — again.

Works for me.

Remember that high-tech collar worn by Astro, the talking dog on the Jetsons? Now we know what it was — a GPS from Garmin for tracking him down when he got lost in space. And now you can get one too, especially useful if you have a dog like my ol’ Lab Mocha, who delighted in disappearing in the tall grass to track down a squirrel, coyote, or foxglove (a sure sign of summer).

The Garmin Astro system includes a handheld GPS device and the DC-30 collar, which has a GPS transmitter and is weighted in such a way that the antenna always points skyward. To use it, you haul the two pieces outside, turn on the handheld and transmitter, and wait for satellite signals. Then you attach the collar to your dog and turn him or her loose.

Every few seconds, your pup’s position is transmitted to your handheld, and you can see his or her current position on the map page of your handheld. A Dog Tracker page provides current status: whether the pooch is running, sitting, on point, or bounding around the base of a tree.

If you have multiple dogs, you can track them all on a single device — up to 10 at a time — at a distance of up to seven miles away (depending on what the terrain is).

Rat Raway, Reorge!