A Public Diplomacy Dilemma: Cats or Dogs as Ambassadors?

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image from below-cited article

A kind public-diplomacy [JB emphasis] colleague sent me this informative (and amusing) BBC article :

The US embassy in Australia has apologised for an email invitation featuring a cat dressed in pyjamas that was mistakenly sent out by the US state department.

The email, titled "meeting", went to an unknown number of recipients, US officials in Canberra confirmed.

It was accompanied by a photo of a cat wearing a Cookie Monster outfit and holding a plate of biscuits.

In a light-hearted apology, the embassy called the email a "training error".

"Sorry to disappoint those of you who were hoping to attend this 'cat pyjama-jam' party, but such an event falls well outside our area of expertise," US mission to Australia spokesman Gavin Sundwall told the Australian Associated Press.

"It was a training error made by one of our new staff testing out our email newsletter platform."

The US embassy in New Zealand, however, didn't miss a chance to weigh in.

Along with the words "cat pyjama-jam", the email also included words in Latin [JB - What's that? What you feed your cat? :)], and recipients were given an option to reply to the invitation.

The US has been without an ambassador to Australia for two years - the longest gap since World War Two.

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In an email to my esteemed colleague (which I hope he found humorous), I could not help but note:

As I read from the BBC article you kindly sent me, "The US has been without an ambassador to Australia for two years - the longest gap since World War Two," my practical-minded inclination was but to speculate:

"Why not make the now internationally famous cat the USA ambassador Down Under"?

But there's a down-side:

Dog-lovers might get jealous/resentful (a citation from) : 

For countries where pandas are not a native species, dogs could possibly perform “dog diplomacy,” a term I have not yet seen. A U.S. pet club in the 1950s claimed, however, that “dogs make the best ambassadors” because they “are capable of hurdling the barriers of language and ideologies in the quest for peace.” Writer Lisa Loeb shares this pro-canine attitude in her [book] Ambassador Dogs, in which she writes that dogs are “ambassadors to the world and our own local communities. They come to serve and love us as only they know how.”

 image from

So, Senators: Whom will you confirm as USA ambassadors throughout the world?

Cats or Dogs? :) 

This is the moment to decide ...