Imagine That: Dogs and Cats Texting

Those of us who share our lives with other species get to know them as individuals. We learn to intuit what they're thinking. They talk to us with their bodies, their eyes, their movements. And each cat, each dog, each bird or gerbil, has a different personality, a different way of looking at things, a different voice.

Athena, the schemer is obviously whispering some nefarious plan into Dawn's ear.

I "hear" Dr. Lilah patiently coaxing Athena into letting her clean her ears. I can tell what Dawn is saying as she tries to make me understand her plea, "You WILL feed the cat. You WILL feed the cat." I hear volumes in Jasper's sighs when he begrudgingly pours himself off the comfortable couch to greet someone at the door. And I get a peek into Tucker's mind when he's intensely focused on playing Ball. I can even hear the inflection and capitalization; it is most certainly not "ball," but "Ball."

What is Tucker saying?  "Please help. There's no dog food in the container."

I don't believe I'm alone in this. I think many of us speak for the animals who cannot. We hear their voices.

Jasper: "I don't really need to get off this comfortable couch, do I?"

Lilah: "What? You've never seen a dog floss her teeth with bunny whiskers?"

What if they could talk.

Really.

Okay, well, we all know that's impossible. But we're already imagining it.

Call me crazy. (Some do already.) But I've been thinking about this for awhile. This is why (and if you haven't called me crazy before, you will now), I created Twitter accounts for all my cats and dogs. And why each of them has a Facebook Page. (Go ahead, look up Athena Willett on Facebook, or LilahDogSpeaks on Twitter.) I was sure I could come up with a way to give them the voices I imagine.

And I've taken it one step fur-ther (intentional pun!). I'm happy to introduce you to my newest endeavor, a new website that imagines what would happen if Lilah, Jasper, Tucker, Athena and Dawn all had cell phones and could send text messages to me:

I call it (rather obviously) Dogs and Cats Texting.

It's been live for about two weeks. You can get there several ways:
http://www.dogsandcatstexting.com/
http://www.dogsandcatstexting.tumblr.com/
or simply Google "dogs and cats texting" and my site will come up.

Once I started writing, it was incredible how fast the ideas kept coming. I have about 50 already noted and in progress. Because of this, I am posting a new text every day. And I keep coming up with more ideas daily. It amuses me, and I hope it will amuse you.

Feel free to share the posts or the site with your animal-loving friends if you think they might enjoy it. Spread the fun.

Below is a sample of one of the posts. Each one is a text message between one of the dogs or cats and me...and each has an accompanying photo.

The sample is hard to read here, unfortunately, but you get the idea. To see all the texts--and photos--go to the Dogs and Cats Texting site.

Click on this picture and you'll see a larger version, which is easier to read.

I will be starting a separate email list, which I will send out once a week for Complete with Dogs fans to see the latest posts.  Just like I do for Complete with Dogs, I will be using a mail service that makes it easy for you to unsubscribe. (I do not want to spam anyone and I promise I will not be insulted if you opt out.) However, if you'd like an email every time I update, which will be every day, you can sign up on the site. One of my friends, when asking for this feature, compared my posts to seeing a daily comic strip. For the more technically inclined, there is also an RSS feed.

I would love to hear your comments and feedback on this. I think it's fun--and funny--but then I'm kind of partial. And I hear voices.