So, West Midlands Police has a tweeting CSI dog. Smithy, a two-year-old black labrador "trained to find blood and human remains" passes on such gems as "back home soaking wet coat . . . dinner and a nice warm kennel".

He may need to step up his act if he's going to compete with the undisputed king of the Twitter jungle. Sockington, a grey-and-white cat who lives in the town of Waltham, Massachusetts, has notched up more than 1.5m followers – Smithy could only boast 316 by lunchtime yesterday. It helps that Sockington is a prolific tweeter with his own website; you can even buy the T-shirt. His owner, Jason Scott, a 39-year-old computer administrator and historian, has also hinted there's a book in the pipeline. Just so you know what you've been missing, here's a tweet he made earlier: "CAN'T REALLY COMPLAIN ABOUT THIS COUCH wait I'm a cat HEY WHAT'S UP WITH THE HALF-SIZE COUCH WITH NO INLAID FOOD BOWL."