Rosita Boland: ‘I was phoning Cat. Don’t tell anyone,’ my aunt said

Earlier this month there was a news story about a new gadget called a “DogPhone”. It looks like a soft ball. The idea is that the dog at home decides to play with it, and when the ball moves, all sorts of things happen. The electronic wizardry contained within this soft ball that your dog – presumably not the kind of hound who likes to tear their toys apart – will send a signal to a laptop, that sets off a video call, and then the sound of a ringing phone.

“The owner can choose whether to take the call, and when to hang up, while they can also place a call to their pet – although the dog has to move the ball to pick up,” read the Guardian article. The person who came up with DogPhone was Dr Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas of the University of Glasgow.

She tested the device on her own dog, Zack; a black labrador. She noticed that while there were existing pieces of technology that activate feeders, or allow owners to look at their pet through a webcam, or even a gadget that measures the steps your dog makes when home alone, there were none that gave a dog “agency”.

“This is just one way to demonstrate that dogs can control technology,” Hirskyi-Douglas said.

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I remain kind of baffled as to the benefit of this DogPhone. It’s not as if the dog can chat to its owner, although perhaps like most things involving pets, the gadget is really aimed at the owner. The owner can chat to the dog, even when not in the room. However, I can report that more than once when I have been on national radio and not in the room, my own dog has paid exactly zero attention to her owner’s disembodied voice coming out of the object that sits on top of my kitchen countertop.

On one of my trips back from the dining room, I discovered my aunt furtively replacing the receiver

As it happens, I know a thing or two about pets and phones, or telephones as they were called back in the day. My late aunt had a black Siamese cat, called Cat. When Cat first arrived as a kitten, there was a long discussion as to what its name was to be. The discussion went on so long, that the kitten was a cat by the time my aunt gave up on finding the perfect name and so called her Cat instead.

Cat was not actually the best communicator in the ordinary run of things. I mean, she stood by the door when she wanted to go out, and she mewed with hauteur when feeding time was approaching, but she was not so keen on actually spending time with any of us.

She liked to sleep on a blanket in the airing cupboard. The cupboard door was left permanently open to facilitate her comings and goings. This meant that a fair degree of the warm air went out of the airing cupboard, but when Cat accidentally got shut in one day by an unsuspecting visitor, my aunt thereafter wedged it open.

My aunt and uncle were regular visitors to our home at Christmas. They arrived with a wheel of Brie, a block of Stilton, a round of Camembert, bottles of wine, crackers, bags of beautifully-wrapped gifts, and the first Christmas they had her, Cat. It was the only Christmas Cat spent with us. One household member objected so strongly to her feline presence, that Cat was confined for the duration to an exterior room where fuel was stored. It was the opposite of a warm airing cupboard, and thereafter, Cat remained at home.

The first Christmas Cat remained back at base, my aunt was fretful. As I moved between the kitchen and the diningroom, carrying plates and glasses, and as the smell of a roasting turkey began to fill the house, I noticed my aunt lingering in the hallway.

'Have you been calling Cat a few times today?' My aunt nodded

In those days when households had one landline, and long before mobile phones, our phone was in the hall. It was at the bottom of the staircase, so any conversations that took place were likely to be overheard. It was also back in the days when phone calls were timed, and billed by the minute or part of a minute.

On one of my trips back from the dining room, I discovered my aunt furtively replacing the receiver. I wondered aloud whom she was calling, as most people she would call on Christmas Day were already in the house.

“Cat,” she whispered to me. “Don’t tell anyone.”

I never knew what my beloved and unusual aunt was going to come out with next, but thought it important not to laugh, although I longed to. Instead I pointed out unnecessarily: “Cat can’t answer the phone.”

“But the phone ringing will be company for her. Cat will get out of the airing cupboard, and sniff the phone, and it’ll be a distraction in her day. It’s not costing anything, So there won’t be a big bill for the calls.”

“Have you been calling Cat a few times today?”

My aunt nodded. The door opened, and another family member emerged from the diningroom. After that, I covered for my aunt, as she made more Christmas Day calls to Cat, that year, and during the years that followed.

I don’t know if DogPhone will become a thing, but I do know that my aunt came up with CatPhone decades ago.