Extract from "I woof therefore I am"

Us dogs have always had our own methods for tracking things down. You humans use your clunky old computers when you want to search for something. Y'all think you invented stuff like the Worldwide Web, Google, e-mails, social networking ... but what you don't realise is that us woofers have had this sort of stuff for ages. Not many people know this, but in fact we invented the idea of sharing information via a network (we called it the 'SmellNet'), along with on-line messaging ('SmellMail'), social networking ('SmellBook'), and wi-fi ('Wiffy').

When I leave the house for my walkies, the first thing I do is log-on (or 'sniff-on' as we call it) at the nearest lamp-post. There are other places to go online of course: trees, curbs, walls. They are the doggy equivalent of an internet cafe: public wiffy spots where you can sniff-on, check out your mates in smell-space (our equivalent of cyberspace), and just hang out, chill, and look cool.

Then I pick up my smell-mails, see what's been happening on SmellBook, and catch up with all the latest news and gossip. Who's dating who; how is Hugo, the 'babe magnet' Yorkie dude*, getting on with his prescription diet; and is Luna the Bulldog* still arguing with Speedy G the Jack Russell*, over ownership of a bone they buried three months ago. They've been locked in a protracted disagreement that's been dragging for ages, and will probably end up in court. Bone ownership rights are always tricky to settle in Canine law.

Anyway, so now I've sniffed-on and checked out what's been happening in local smell-space, I might add a comment or perhaps a 'like' by leaving a bit of pee on the lamp-post. Then I usually mosey on down to the wall near the rubbish bins. The wiffy signal is especially good there, and it gets a lot of 'hits', so it's always a good place to sniff-on and reach a big audience.

Anyway, that's how us dogs have been keeping in touch since the dawn of history, and it's only taken you humans a few millennia to catch up. You reckon you invented language, you like to to talk about the 'word of mouth', and for the past few decades you've had your internet to spread the word, but us dogs have been woofing and using the 'power of smell' to deliver messages since ... well, as I said, the dawn of canine history.

(* they're all doggy characters in the book, but you'll have to be patient for a bit longer to learn more about these wonderful woofers ... not long to wait now !)