Puppy Tweets Pink

by Mattel

Product Features

• Tweets are the new Bark!
• Now you can get the 411 with text messages from Puppy Tweets!
• Comes pre-loaded with over 500 phrases
• Lets you connect with your pet over the Internet
• When your dog moves, barks, or naps the tag sends a Tweet via Twitter

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 1.5 x 7.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0037W6TY4
• Item model number: T7006
• Manufacturer recommended age: 13 - 15 years
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #58,714 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
• Average Customer Review: 1.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Hands-On Review

Find out what your dog is really up to with Mattel's Puppy Tweets. This fun electronic device attaches to your dog's collar and transmits tweets about her physical activity during the day. Barking, sleeping, and running all trigger humorous tweets corresponding to the activity, such as "I've got a new leash on life!" or "L'il help! Nose stuck in bird feeder!" This fun accessory is perfect for any adult dog owner who wants to know what Fido does while home alone.

Puppy Tweets Ages: Adult Requires: Phillips screwdriver (for battery installation), computer with USB port, Twitter account What We Think Fun factor: Durability: Ease of assembly: Novelty factor: The Good: A fun way to lightly monitor your dog's behavior while you're away. The Challenging: Repetitive tweets cannot be customized or changed by dog owners. In a Nutshell: A device that brightens any dog owner's day.

Opposable Thumbs Not Required
Puppy Tweets works wirelessly with an electronic tag that communicates to the provided USB dongle when installed on a nearby computer. Tweets are generated based on the dog's physical behavior, such as running or napping, and audible behavior, like barking, and transmitted to a dog's Twitter account wirelessly via the USB dongle. The operating range varies depending on physical obstructions but may reach up to 100 feet between USB dongle and the tag.

Twitter Isn't Just for the Birds
After downloading the Puppy Tweets software and inserting the 3V lithium battery, dog owners can access the Puppy Tweets desktop icon to modify the frequency of tweets. The content of the tweets, however, is not customizable. In response to consumer demand, on the manufacturer's Web site there is mention of forthcoming downloadable "packs" for increased variety of puppy tweets.

Although the tag that attaches to the dog's collar is made of hard plastic, the device is not likely to withstand destruction if Fido ever uses the device as a chew toy. However, when the tag is securely attached to a dog's collar it is out of reach and should not get in the way of usual canine activity.

What's in the Box
Puppy Tweets tag, USB dongle, 3V lithium battery, and battery instruction sheet.

Simple to set up, the Puppy Tweets device attaches directly to your dog's collar. View larger.

You'll receive hilarious tweets about your dog's status - whether he's eating, playing, or napping! (shown in blue) View larger.

Product Description

Tweets are the new Barks! Ever wonder what your pup is doing while you're away? Well, now you can get the 411 with text messages from Puppy Tweets! Whenever your dog moves, barks (or just naps), the tag knows it and sends a WiFi signal to your computer which then sends you a Tweet via Twitter. Simply set up a Twitter page for your dog and your Puppy Tweets tag starts generating Tweets. Puppy Tweets comes pre-loaded with over 500 phrases that put a humorous or insightful spin on your dog's daily activity. For example, a bark may generate a Tweet of: "I bark because I miss you. There I said it. Now hurry home." A quick run through the house could produce: "I finally caught that tail I've been chasing and...OOUUUCHH!" Invite your friends and family to follow your pet on Twitter and help your dog follow his or her favorite puppy pals or celebrities. Puppy Twitter lets you connect with your pet over the Internet. It's a great way to brighten your day 'cause a Tweet from your pooch is a virtual smooch!

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting concept; Horrible execution, August 11, 2010

By 

C. Vincent (Rochester, NY) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

= Durability:1.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:1.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Puppy Tweets Pink (Toy)

This sounded like an interesting idea to me... it basically comes down to a collar attachment that detects sound and motion from your dog and then wirelessly sends the info to a program on your computer, which then writes a short tweet on a twitter account set up for your dog. I didn't have extremely high hopes for this device, but thought it would be fun to check in on my dogs during the day. I was hoping to be able to see a tweet every once in a while showing me that they were barking out the window, running around the house, or maybe napping while I was gone during the day. My low expectations weren't even close to being met by this device.

2 major problems:

1) It's really big! The device you hang on the dog's collar is 2 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick. The chain it is suspended on is another 1.5 inches, basically making the entire device 3.5 inches hanging off your dog's collar. This might not be a big deal to some larger dogs, but my 20 lb. shelties hated it. They would try to run and the puppytweets attachment would continually swing up and smack them in the face. They kept trying to bite it off and I constantly found them walking around with it in their mouth. They just hated having it on their collar. The most amusing thing that came out of buying this product is that the dog not wearing the device would try to chase after the other and grab on to the product while it was swinging around. They made a game out of this giant tag that flailed about while they ran. As I said though, this might not be a problem for larger dogs, and I would not have rated the product poorly just because of this aspect.

2) More importantly, it just doesn't work well. Setting up a program to randomly tweet and say it was my dogs doing it probably would have the same result that using the device did.

Opening the box, you get 3 items: the tag that I described before, a rather large and clunky usb drive (hopefully you don't have many usb ports close together if you plan on using this), and a separate 2032 battery. Basically, you set the device up by downloading a program from the puppytweet website, installing it, setting up the usb drive, and then unscrewing the tag, putting in the battery, pressing the reset button, and then letting the program do it's setup. I had to go through the process a couple of times before it would actually match up with the tag, which is another gripe I have - there's no way to tell if the tag is on or if it's even working. A sound, light, or something would have been nice, but there's nothing... and no way of telling if your battery is dead or not. It just tells you when it is matched. You go through a process of setting up a twitter account (or using an existing one), waiting for it to tell you the collar and USB drive are matched, and then put it on the dog's collar and wait for the tweets.

An initial one came saying something like, "Puppy Tweets Rocks!" (it most certainly does not). I waited for a while longer and nothing else showed up while I played with my dogs for almost 30 minutes. I had them running around, barking, jumping... no tweets though. I went back to the program and checked the status: It said everything was good. Why no tweets then? Well, you can set it at three different frequency settings, and I had it on medium, so now I bumped it up to high frequency. Immediately, three more tweets came by: "In typical fashion, the cat down the street is registered as an Independent. They can't ever commit to anything.", "Why? Because I can.", and "I've got a new leash on life!"... then silence. I let the dogs play with it on their collars for a while (even though they obviously hated it), and absolutely no tweets went by for 2 hours, even though I had it on the high frequency setting. There was so much activity, running, barking.... why wouldn't this device tweet about any of it? I thought maybe it was disconnected, but the status still said everything was fine.

I decided to give it a little more time and just let the dogs keep it on for a little while longer... over the course of 5 hours, three more tweets came through on the high frequency setting: "I <3 Animal Planet.", "Uh oh! It's getting late and I haven't finished scattering my toys all over the room for you to trip over when you get home.", and "L'il help! Nose stuck in bird feeder!"

So, just to summarize my experience: I had 7 tweets over about 7 hours while the dogs were running around, barking, and playing... and all 7 tweets were completely random. I don't know what or if anything that the dogs did actually set off these certain tweets, but I was expecting something more like, "Barking at the mailman" when they barked a lot, or "Chasing a rabbit" when they are running. Why would barking and running just set off stuff like "I <3 Animal Planet."? What is the point of having sensors to tell if the dog is barking or moving a lot then?

I can't recommend this product at all since I honestly don't see any point to it if the sensors aren't going to actually pick up on barking, movement, or silence. I don't need to strap a giant tag around my dogs neck to write tweets like "I've got a new leash on life".

Honestly, if the tag was MUCH smaller and the sensor worked and tweeted about actual activity instead of pointless tweets that could mean the dogs are doing any number of things, it might not be a bad little device. Unfortunately, this is neither of those two stipulations.

UPDATE: I kept the puppy tweets set up over the last 24 hours, and left the tag sitting on the desk while both me and my dogs were away (so, no movement and no noise). There were approximately 30 new tweets from it while on the high frequency setting. To my surprise, several of them said things like: "Who needs ambien when you've got a chew toy and the warm sun?", "It might look like I'm just sleeping, but I'm also working on my tan.", and "Guess what? I snored so loud I scared myself awake! I crack me up!". Looks like the silence and no movement actually did have an effect on the tweets since most suggested that the dogs might be asleep. Most of the tweets were still very random and some even seemed to suggest a lot of movement like: "Having my daily workout. Already did fifteen leg lifts! ; )" and "I finally caught that tail I've been chasing and OOOOOWWWWWWCCCHHHHH!".

Since several of the tweets actually seemed to reflect the silence and no movement though, I'm going to go ahead and bump up my rating by a star. It's working better than I first thought, but I stand by the fact that I can't recommend this product. I enjoy some of the funny, random tweets put out by the device, but would still like to see more correlation with the actual activity - right now, it just has way too many random ones and not enough tweets actually about the activity... and I'm not sure why I was getting tweets suggesting movement when it was completely still and in a silent location. And, as I've said many times in the review: it's just way too big to actually leave on my dog's collar. Don't even consider this product if your dog is on the smaller side.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't be a Sucker!, September 15, 2010

By 

J. Andrea (Andover, MN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:1.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:1.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Puppy Tweets Pink (Toy)

ok...after seeing this toy touted in the 'hi tech' segment of cnn on t.v. this morning...i couldn't resist writing this because i know how useful amazon reviews are to me and hopefully i can keep at least one more person from buying this.

This thing sends out random, and very uncreative messages i might add, ALL DAY LONG.

even if:
-your dog is sound asleep
-your dog never barks
-your dog isn't wearing the dumb dangly collar 'sender' with the fake microphone
-the battery has been pulled from the 'receiver' (with the fake antenna) plugged into your computer
-you have unplugged the receiver from your computer and thrown it in the garbage

the only way i could get this dumb thing to stop sending me texts all day was to shut down the software on my computer

the only thing you are paying for is to register on a website to be spammed all day by the team of dummies who developed this thing to get rich off of people who love their dogs

don't be another sucker....don't buy this!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Well..., December 18, 2010

By 

Dan - See all my reviews

= Durability:1.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:1.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Puppy Tweets Pink (Toy)

I installed the software from the puppy tweets website an hour ago. I do not own the hardware at all, no transmitter, no receiver. The install didnt even complete all the way. It has sent two tweets so far without me actually owning the thing. Enough said.