$3.44 [Puppy Tweets]

Two questions:  What was your least awesome impulse pet purchase? and How crazy are you really?

One answer: Puppy Tweets, in pink. 

In my thirty seconds of reflection before ordering Puppy Tweets on Amazon.com, I decided this would be an excellent purchase.  Puppy Tweets is an electronic dog tag with a sound and motion sensor that sends messages to your computer, then tweets to you.  A device that combines two things I love: dogs and the Internet.  Also, I'm a lawyer and I'm in my office in Manhattan during most waking hours, so I figured this would keep me informed throughout the day about Betelgeuse's comings and goings back in Brooklyn.  And finally, the retail price is $29.99, and it was on sale for $3.44 on Amazon at the time, so I thought I was getting a great deal.

Puppy Tweets, with all its potential, was a major fail.  For one, it turns out that Betelgeuse didn't have anything interesting to say.  The device comes preloaded with 500 tweets.  Betel wore it for one day, tweeted about sixteen times -- which you can see here -- and then I decidedly unfollowed her and removed the Puppy Tweets device and put it in a drawer.  Sorry, Puppy Tweets, but my dog does not like Keanu Reeves, and I don't want to read about her munching on her hindquarters.  Also, the website and packaging report that the device detects movement or barking and tweets accordingly, but really, the tweets came at seemingly random intervals (she tweeted that her nose was stuck in a birdfeeder when we were watching her sleep).  And finally, the device is huge on a small dog, and Betel kept hitting Lulu (who was merely our foster dog at the time) in the face with it when they were wrestling, and Betel didn't even tweet about it.

So Puppy Tweets was a flop, but please don't think for one second that I learned my lesson.  I have had Uncle Milton's Pet's Eye View Digital Camera, which hangs from your dog or cat's collar and takes photos from its point of view, on my wishlist for months.  If it goes on sale, you're going to have the pleasure of seeing a photostream of Lola's automatic pet feeder as she spends most of the day staring at it, waiting for it to dispense, or Lulu's p.o.v. of her various efforts to "bury" bones and treats in the couch cushions.  I'm sure you can't wait.

Update:  I have been informed that some of you actually like Betelgeuse's Puppy Tweets twitter feed.  If you would like me to reconnect the device so that you can follow her absurd Twitter feed written by Mattel employees, leave a comment here or send an email.  Anything for the fans.