It’s like an internet of smell

  • When I got a dog, I found out that some of my assump­tions about dogs were wrong. I thought dogs bounded around all day long, since dog-people reg­u­larly remark on the lethargy of cats. Nope, I don’t know what breed of dog those peo­ple had, but our Clemen­tine maps her day out in terms of room heaters, couches and cushy fabric.

    I thought that dogs needed a daily walk (or two or three) because of all this bound­less energy. Maybe that is true of some of those zippy lit­tle ter­ri­ers and things, but since Clemen­tine is a scent-hound, the only thing she wants out of a walk is to visit spe­cific spots and catch up on the “news.” She wants to find out who else has been out (dog? cat? squir­rel?) and what they had to say. It’s all very geeky, really.

    Some­thing like this:

    1. Get to one of the hotspots — the tele­phone pole at the end of the street is a major one — and go online.
    2. Read the e-mail.
    3. Has any­one answered the mes­sage you left yes­ter­day? If not, re-read it. If so, re-read it anyway.
    4. Leave a new e-mail, in proper text-speak:
      hi im clem n tine
      im okay and u r 2
      tell me who u r :-)

    And then she’s away imme­di­ately, pulling on the leash to get to the next inter­net cafe. But — whoa, baby! — here comes Otto the bas­set hound being walked the other way. We LOVE Otto. And so it’s time for instant-messaging, noses to oppos­ing rumps:
    Otto4U: how r u?

    Clem­N­tine: ur smellin ok. u ok?
    Otto4U: u smell ok.
    Clem­N­tine: u ok?
    Otto4U: hey wots that smell?

    And just like that, Otto rudely starts multi-tasking, read­ing the e-mail of the sheltie who lives here. Clem gives him a Super­poke, but his atten­tion is caught up in the prose of another and in craft­ing his own reply. Clem would like to reply to his reply, but she’s out of band­width. So she tugs me along. We’re los­ing day­light and we’ve got more stops to make.

    … the fence post (noth­ing but spam) … the spot on the side­walk (“hm. Mal­lo­mar?”) … fire hydrant (LOTS of e-mail!) … our dri­ve­way … our garage “wait. wots that smell? hey…. HEY!!”

    Ace, the neighbor’s black cat, thought he had found a quiet spot. INSTANT instant-messaging:
    Clem­N­tine: dude!
    Ace­of­hearts: b cool
    Clem­N­tine: DUDE!
    Ace­of­hearts: bite me
    Clem­N­tine: o no u dinnent!!

    Ace sud­denly remem­bers some­thing he has to do back home. Clemen­tine is quite adamant about inves­ti­gat­ing the entire garage after he scoots out a win­dow. She re-reads the entire mes­sage thread to make sure she’s not miss­ing any­thing. It’s all just as com­pelling as it can be.

    But enough’s enough. She’s taken in all the new infor­ma­tion she can hold, she’s done all the net­work­ing she can fit in, so it’s in the house, off the leash — bang-o. Offline.

    Noth­ing new about Face­book or MySpace. Dogs have had it forever.


    Related posts:

    1. Dog with leaves
    2. And another thing about fall …
    3. It’s hot and I smell like spaghetti sauce
    4. And win­ter makes that sloooow right turn
    5. Pooch plunge

    March 15th, 2008 | Grace | No Comments |

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