Posts tagged "twitter"

"Late Night Hashtags" is Jimmy Fallon's recurring bit in which he posts a particular #hashtag on Twitter to solicit viewer tweets on the topic. The hashtag from last night's edition was right up our alley: #mypetisweird. Fallon's influence is strong enough to have made #mypetisweird briefly the No. 1 trending topic worldwide on Twitter, so you know he go some terrific responses.

Below are links to the tweets that were featured in the segment. Follow these people. You gotta figure that if these pets are weird enough to have risen above all the countless submissions, their owners are going to tweet about them again!

http://twitter.com/#!/zozogirl808/status/78320081356062720
http://twitter.com/#!/MissMo10/status/78222070697295873
http://twitter.com/#!/mikehenneberry/status/78240836701274112
http://twitter.com/#!/iamericho/status/78440032012222464
http://twitter.com/#!/NickFerrucci/status/78328203239895040
http://twitter.com/#!/Caley/status/78228610506432512
http://twitter.com/#!/eschroeds/status/78217643076747264
http://twitter.com/#!/VicStiX/status/78369284333649920

It's finally here! Meet the Breeds is this weekend, Oct. 16–17, in New York City. As the official blog of Meet the Breeds, we'll be there at booth 2401. If you're in the area, come say hello!

Even if you're not able to make it to the event, you can still follow along. We'll be posting updates all weekend on Facebook and Twitter. Check out a preview of the event in the video below.

And don't forget, today is the last day to enter all of our great Meet the Breeds giveaways! Want a year's supply of dog food, or a fancy heated bed to keep your pet warm and cozy this winter? What about pet insurance or a great travel pet carrier? Click on the giveaways below to sign up! The contest registration ends today at 5 p.m. ET, so hurry!

DOG FOOD: Win a year's supply of Iams dog food

PET INSURANCE: Win a year of pet insurance from PetPartners, Inc.

DELUXE PET BED AND MORE: Win a PetSafe Heated Wellness Sleeper and a coupon for $100 off the installation of an Invisible Fence

CAT LITTER: Win 80 pounds of Dr. Elsey's Cat Attract Litter

PET CARRIER: Win a SturdiBag Pet Carrier

TRAVEL GIFT PACK: Win a GoPetFriendly.com Gift Pack

CLEANING AND GROOMING PRODUCTS: Win $100 Worth of AKC GOLD Products

HOME AND CAR SAFETY: Win an ADT Safety Bundle

TASTY TREATS: Win $100 Worth of Pet Brands AKC Treats and Rawhides

Rounding up our favorite animal stories, photos, and videos on the web each week!

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  Attack Cat Saves the Day

  Lima doesn't like when you mess with her mama, a point the kitty proved by defeating two large pit bulls.[via WFAA.com]

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  License to Coo

  Indian police arrested a pigeon on suspicion of being a Pakistani spy. The pigeon escaped using a laser watch and a charming British accent.[via My Fox LA]

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  Twitty Kitty

  A new twitter device for cats lets the Internet know what they're up to. Most common tweet: "I hate my owner."[via Mashable]

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  Start Spreading the Oysters

  Oysters are being used to clean up New York waterways. They not only help filter polluted water, they're also great at giving tourists directions. [via the New York Daily News]

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  Snake Smiting Mom

  A woman wrestles an eight-foot python to save her dog. Isn't it supposed to work the other way around? [via People Pets]

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  Frog Crossing

  Thousands of frogs are disrupting traffic in Greece. Insert joke about "Frogger" here. [via New York Times]
  
  More Pet News

They may not talk IRL (in real life), but pets have plenty to say on the popular social networking site Twitter.

"Anipals," as pets on Twitter are sometimes called, have carved out an entire universe in which they, with a little help from their owners, hold monthly parties to raise money for rescue groups, give shout-outs to ailing animals, trade pictures and chronicle the day-to-day meanderings of their keepers.

Of all the critters on Twitter -- and there are an estimated 69,000 pet profiles -- cats command the largest followings. (Perhaps, as one cat owner told the New York Times' Bits Blog, cats simply have more to say.) Sockington, a Persian cat in Waltham, Mass. remains the most popular non-human on Twitter, with his own blog and more than 1.5 million Twitter followers, more than Wyclef Jean or Dr. Sanjay Gupta. And Romeo the Cat has gotten his army of more than 8,000 followers to give $32,000 to various animal rescue groups.

Dogs, ferrets, birds and other creatures also have a place on Twitter. FrugalDougal, a cairn terrier who lives in England, is the online director of the PawPawty, an international monthly get-together that occurs solely on Twitter to raise money for animal charities. Created by FrugalDougal's owner, Lynn Haigh, the events feature "bark tenders" who mix up special virtual cocktails (flavored milk for the youngsters, adult drinks like Pina Catladas and pawjitos for the older anipals) and anipal "sekurity" to keep out spammers. Attendees are encouraged to donate to a chosen charity. In the first year, the parties raised $25,000.

This summer your iPhone goes to the dogs with the release of Bow-Lingual, an application that translates your pooch's bark into English, and then automatically tweets it! It's true; you simply have your dog bark into the mic on your iPhone, and the special algorithm analyzes "what your dog wants from you," displaying his request (or otherwise) on the front screen. A button (in the shape of a bone, naturally) can be pressed, upon which Fido's sentiments are echoed through the Twittosphere. (This is not to be confused with the current novelty dog translation app on iTunes called BowLingual which we already downloaded and paid 99 cents for. This is something new!)

Japan's toy manufacturer Takara Tomy markets Bow-Lingual as a novelty, but that doesn't mean we're not absurdly excited for its August release (following the initial Japanese version release). And with the original Bow-Lingual gadget having won the (humorous) Ig Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for promoting peace and harmony between the species, maybe we should take the invention a little more seriously.

Because, hey, if you didn't know what your dog was saying before, now there will be an app for that.

Twitter has proven itself to be one of the most useful tools ever for time-wasting, inane chatter, and mundane observations. It's a mystery how anyone survived before following Ashton Kutcher tweets on what he had for dinner. And now, our favorite destroyer of productivity is being taken to the next level: Twitter for dogs.

According to our sister site, www.jsyk.com, Mattel is working on a device that will allow your dog to automatically update his Twitter account, no typing necessary. Called Puppy Tweets, this smart motion sensor will attach to your dog's collar and send signals to a USB receiver in your computer, which will then update Twitter with pre-written tweets such as "Somedays it feels like my paw is permanently on the snooze button."

Impressive. Not even humans can tweet while sleeping.

Now you and all your friends can know exactly what your dog is doing every second of the day, no matter how uninteresting it is. It will be just as compelling as every other tweet you've ever read. That is, unless your dog is on some kind of cross-country-traveling, Homeward Bound, Milo & Otis adventure.

If they're smart, Mattel will let users program custom tweets, and then we could have more realistic tweeting from our four-legged friends, such as the following:

"OMG another dog! OMG! OMG! OMG!"

"@fido ur butt smells wonderful"

"So excited to chew on self for next hour"

Expect to see Puppy Tweets in stores this fall for the surprisingly reasonable price of $29.99.

On Twitter, nobody knows you're a dog, right?

Perhaps, but follow "The Doggy Diaries" anyway at our new feed here. I promise to keep you fully apprised of every poo-filled step of Anna's and my journey to find the pooch of our dreams. Beyond that, I will shout-out articles relevant to the types of dogs we're considering, like rescues, bully breeds, and those who have been discriminated against. Feel free to send along anything you deem interesting, and hit me up to follow you as well.

Of course, don't forget to follow Paw Nation here.

And if someone can suggest the best way to go about making #slobber a trending topic, let me know.

Twitter has exploded this year by providing a new platform for the public to rant and communicate about the things they love. And while the 140 character updates can be mundane, they're not all meaningless. Groups like PetMD, PETA and the ASPCA now use Twitter to post useful information for their followers. And naturally, pet owners and "celebrity animals" like Jenny the Stroller Pug have added their tweets to the mix. Search tools and hash tags such as #TwitterACritter are also used to help facilitate animal adoptions.

On behalf of animal lovers on Twitter, Paw Nation did some research to find the 12 most useful and entertaining animal Twitter accounts for our readers to follow:

1. @ASPCA
The American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has taken to the Twitterverse to reach out to the animal-loving masses, and it's working. With more than 14,000 followers so far, @ASPCA brings the latest updates about their campaigns, victories and efforts.

2. @TheQuackPack
No, it's not an afternoon animated series with Huey, Dewey and Louie. The Quack Pack's tweets are deployed by the "parents" of two mallard ducks (named Laylah and Saydee) who are being raised as children. Think "My Monkey Baby," with ducks.

How sick is this? A Miley Cyrus fan who found it "painfully shocking" when the 16 year-old pop star suddenly announced that she was deleting her Twitter account has come up with a deranged plan to force Cyrus to return to the micro-blogging site.

Unless Cyrus starts tweeting again, the fan claims that she (presumably, the unidentified fan is a girl) will kill, cook and eat her cat, Fuzzy, a male gray tabby.

"I've set a deadline of November 16, 2009, when Fuzzy will part with his life and become a meal. I intend to make a cat dish according to our ethnic cuisine," the fan threatens on her website, MileySaveFuzzy.com, which includes photos of Fuzzy and cat recipes. "Fuzzy can make the ultimate sacrifice for this cause. It was very difficult for me, you see, as I sincerely love Fuzzy. But my mind is made up. I could always get another cat, but nothing can replace Miley's tweets for me!"

The fan claims it is not a ruse. "This is NOT a prank or a hoax," the fan writes. "I am not joking, even if some will choose to interpret it that way. Cooking a cat is not illegal in my country, in fact it's part of our culture." And what culture or country would that be? (This writer contacted the demented-sounding fan at the email address provided on her website, but has not, as yet, received a reply.)

Maybe the fan is too busy wading through hate mail. "People are pretty angry about this," the fan tweeted on October 28. "This is important to me and I intend to go through with it." Let's hope not. Cyrus, who made a rap video explaining her reasons for ceasing her tweets, is not likely to return to Twitter. As for the fan, let's hope this is a very sick joke and that nothing will happen to Fuzzy, and that perhaps, he will find a better home! Run, Fuzzy, run!

While Twitter is often dismissed as nothing more than a way for a self-obsessed generation to broadcast the minutiae of their lives, it has also proved to be the perfect tool for getting the word out for animals in need.

Twitter a Critter, recently launched by AdoptAPet.com, allows anyone to get involved with helping find homes for pets that need them, even site visitors who aren't personally able to provide a home for an animal. Every animal's profile at AdoptAPet.com now includes a "Tweet Me!" button so users can post the animal's ad for all their Twitter followers to see, hopefully enticing someone to adopt.

Twitter a Critter is catching on among animal lovers, especially celebrities with large Tweet followings. Actress and noted PETA spokesperson Alyssa Milano, veteran comedians Kevin Nealon and Carol Leifer, and Tony-nominated performer Kristin Chenoweth have all tweeted rescues in need of homes.

If you love animals but you can't adopt one of your own for any number of reasons, we can't think of a better way for you to do your part. And as an added bonus, next time some judgmental friend or family member scoffs at Twitter users, you can shut 'em up when you tell them that you used Twitter to help save a life. Twitter a Critter today and link to your tweet in the comments below!

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If you're an avid Twitter user and an animal lover, chances are good that you've come across Twitter's most popular cat, Sockington (Socks, for short). Sockington isn't just the most followed pet actively posting on Twitter, but with over three quarters of a million followers to date, he's one of the most popular users of the service, period.

Sockington's tweets amount to a daily chronicling of life as a housecat, including the familiar feline obsessions with feeding time, litter-box usage, scratching, napping, and running amok for no particular reason. But the Socks Army (Sockington's term for his legions of fans) would likely tell you that it's the inimitably hyperactive style of his tweets that makes following Sockington such a hilarious daily treat. Whether closely watching the Terrible, Terrible Squirrel; sparring with his more erudite sister, Penny (who also maintains a Twitter account); or continuing the ongoing war with favorite toy Baron von Shakymouse, Sockington always has a unique comment to share about the well-known idiosyncrasies of catdom.

Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?

On Twitter, of course.

Since this tech-savvy Persian cat started using the social messaging tool in February, Romeo's tweets have raised nearly $5,000 (and counting) for animal rescue groups around the country.

It all began in February when the 5 year-old cat's owner, Caroline Golon --- whom Romeo prefers to think of as his "female staff member" --- opened a Twitter account, presumably at his behest.

Romeo pledged 5 cents to the Humane Society of the United States each time someone signed up to follow him on Twitter. Devotees came in droves: humans, cats, horses, hamsters, turtles, birds, and yes, even dogs. Some matched Romeo's donation amount. Others insisted Romeo start a blog --- which he did (allowing his adopted brother, Pugsley, a black cat, to appear on the site with him). Then came corporate sponsors such as FURminator, Feline Pine kitty litter, and most recently, Wellness Pet Food and SeaYu.

Each month, Romeo, a "proud, two-time rescue cat," donates money to an animal rescue group nominated and selected by his community of fans. In April, Romeo single-pawedly raised almost $2,000 for Kitten Rescue in Los Angeles.

Still, Romeo hasn't lost sight of his priorities, as evidenced by this little gem he posted on the evening of April 22:

"Pugsley and I got our 9 p.m. treats at 11:14:23 p.m. tonight. Staff slacking. Heads gonna roll."

Guess who else tweets? Follow Paw Nation on Twitter! We're @paw_nation.

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