Toy giant, Mattel Inc, recently launched a high-tech toy, Puppy Tweets, which will allow your doggy friend to tweet with you, at the Toy Fair 2010 in New York.
A report in the Los Angeles Times describes it as a high-tech toy, which will allow dogs to publicise their daily activities on Twitter via a plastic tag with a sound and motion sensor attached to their collars.
The tag comes with about 500 pre-recorded tweets, which are triggered by your canine friend’s barks or action and automatically posts an update to your dog’s own Twitter page. One of the messages: "I bark because I miss you. There I said it. Now hurry home."
Mattel stresses that Puppy Tweets is “just a toy” and is the company’s first foray into the pet market and to leverage on the social media craze sweeping the world.
Neil Friedman, Mattel Brands President, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times report as saying Puppy Tweets “is a new frontier for us. We think it could be the start of a new wave of products for people to interact with their pets."
To use Puppy Tweets, dog owners are provided with a USB receiver that they connect to their computer. They then download the toy's software online and create a Twitter account for their dog.
When a dog moves or barks, a signal is sent from its Puppy Tweets tag to the receiver, which updates the dog's Twitter page. Owners can then check Twitter to see their dog's latest posts. However, doggy will not be able to use Twitter’s other features such as sending messages or re-tweeting other users’ tweets.
Puppy Tweets will be available later in the year in the United States for about US$30.
And the oldest dog in the world is …
Lulu with Buckly. Courtesy of the Telegraph UK
… a Beagle cross named Lulu, aged 21 in human years or 147 in dog years, from Coventry in England.
And the secret behind her longevity? A diet of freshly cooked fillet steak, veal and sausages, rounding off with cheese and biscuits and maltesers.
Lulu’s owner, Travis Buckly, 60, said Lulu always had the finest meats in the house. “Sometimes it's gammon or on the rare occasion it's been veal. I’m sure that's why she's lived this long - a really strong diet.
"She loves to wash the meat down with Maltesers or cheese and biscuits. She's spoiled rotten."
Buckly’s daughter, Emma, gave Lulu as a present to her father in 1989 when she was a puppy.
Apart from dining on fine cuisine Lulu has holiday in various parts of the country with Buckly and his partner, Susan Parybus, 54, giving her a "broader mind" on the world.
Lulu is a bit deaf and blind, but this has not prevented her from going on regular walks and plays with other dogs. As Buckly said, “she's still in good shape."
Dog years are calculated as one human year being equivalent to seven canine years.
The world's previous oldest dog, Chanel, from New York, died last summer aged 21.
The title was then inherited by Britain's oldest dog Otto, a Dachshund terrier cross, who had to put down in January aged 20.
Buckly has now applied to Guinness World Records and is awaiting their response.
And finally for all you dog lovers, here’s a beautiful video on an advertisement for Pedigree, a supermarket dog food brand. Watch the series of mesmerising slow-motion images of dogs jumping, shaking, and catching treats. The director shot it using a Phantom camera at 1,000fps.
