West Midlands Police already have a far better Twitter presence than any other force, but with their latest account - WMP CSI dog Smithy - they're tapping into the infamous British love of animals.

The Taxpayers' Alliance is unimpressed at this use of police time and money, but actually it's quite a neat way to get a lot of people following a police-controlled Twitter account - the dog is already up to nearly 800 followers, whereas many accounts belonging to real WMP police officers languish down in the low hundreds at best. The main WM Police account has a few thousand followers, but it wouldn't surprise me to see the dog overtaking that in the next few days or weeks. And now the dog can RT things from the more official accounts, thereby spreading them to hundreds of people who would never dream of following a police Twitter account normally. It's a smart move, even if that wasn't the original reason for it.

In general, West Midlands Police are to be congratulated for their enthusiastic adoption of new communications methods - and for adopting them properly, unlike the woefully out-of-touch 'broadcast only' approach taken by London's Met (with accounts such as their CO11 Met Police proudly displaying a 'Twitter policy' which amounts to "we don't want to have conversations with you 'orrible lot"). This kind of light-hearted account shows that WM Police really 'get' Twitter in a way that other forces aren't even approaching.

Plus of course, it's always nice to see a police dog doing something other than biting protestors.