We hope this won't shock you. But MeowMail.com was the brainchild of ã gasp ã a dog!

Her name is Maggie, and in 1999, she sent the first known email to her distant feline friends, Chita McChew and Nala La. It is not known whether Chita and Nala recognized this as the historical event that it was. It is not known how much fur the two cats shed on the keyboard as they typed their way into fame. History merely records that Chita and Nala eagerly answered Maggie's emails, and their canine/feline correspondence over the ensuing months grew to include gossip, news, ideas, feedback about pet food, observations about humans, and the like.

One day, Chita and Nala indiscreetly left the computer on after they were through composing an email to Maggie. Thus, their human, Stacey, found out what the three animals had been up to. She carried the story to her friend, Steve, and together, they realized the magnitude of their discovery.

Then and there, MeowMail was born. And, as scandalous as it sounds, cats around the world today owe their email accounts to a dog.

One more note: when Maggie first took to the keyboard, she lacked even rudimentary typing skills. She therefore asked her human, Cynthia Ann Lima, for assistance. So Cynthia, with her nimble fingers and open mind, became the true godmother of MeowMail.

Cyn and Maggie, we salute you both. For without you, MeowMail.com would never have been. And that's the last nice thing any of us plans to say about dogs ã ever.

Click here to meet the MeowMail.com team.

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