Twitter for dogs

Twitter for Dogs Who Can’t Type

Maria Goodavage

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You think your tweets are trivial? Just wait ’til your dog can start using Twitter on his own. “Sleeping on couch.” “Scratching my ear.” “Barking at moth.” “Licking my tail.” “Yawning.” “Sleeping again.”

“Ha ha ha,” you may say. “Dogs can’t tweet on their own. They don’t opposable thumbs. In fact, they can’t even type!”

Newsflash! Thanks to a device soon to be released by Mattel, dogs won’t need typing skills to keep their Twitter followers up to date with their every single move. All they’ll need for their litany of Twittany is Puppy Tweets.

Puppy Tweets employs a plastic collar tag that’s a sound and motion sensor. If a dog barks, growls, or moves, the noise and movement generate one of 500 canned tweets. With the accompanying USB receiver and special software installed on  your computer, the tweet automatically posts to your dog’s Twitter page.

According to the Los Angeles Times:

A round of woofing could lead to a tweet of “I bark because I miss you. There, I said it. Now hurry home.” A frenzied run through the backyard might garner “I finally caught that tail I’ve been chasing, and . . . OOUUUCHH!”

Sounds kind of corny. And accuracy is thrown to the wind. If your dog lazes his way from one end of the living to the other to go nap on the sofa, he could emit a tweet about chasing squirrels.

But still, it’s a fun toy if you want your dog’s “voice” to be heard on the internet. And it’s a nice way to keep track of what your dog is up to while you’re at work — even he’s not really up to it.

A must-have shirt for the serious canine Twitter fan. Click on the picture to get details.

Puppy Tweets will retail for $29.99. It’s slated to hit the market this fall, but Mattel officials are giving a sneak peek to industry insiders today in New York.

Also adding to the canine Twitter craze is an upcoming iPhone application from Japan. It’s based on the Bowlingual dog emotion translator, reports PC World. When a dog barks, it’s classified into one of six emotions. From there, it gets “translated” to one of many fixed phrases. The app will even take a photo of your dog. The phrase and photo automatically go from the iPhone to Twitter. All this for only $4.99!

And in case your dog is hankering to know what about other hip canines who tweet, he should check outDogs Who Twitter. It’s a growing database of canines who like to let the world know what’s up, one tweet at a time.

Courtesy of dogster.com