Multispecies poetry is a practice of creative writing that lets itself be informed by the agency of other animals. To that end, it experiments with traditional poetic forms but also seeks to go beyond human language, e.g. by incorporating visual elements or scent. Some of this poetry can be read by other species, too, in their own and ultimately inscrutable ways. (All of it, when performed, can of course speak to animals in virtue of its prosody.)
I have chosen to work primarily with dogs for numerous reasons. I have also been lucky to have found a number of curious collaborators, human and canine across the world. You can read about our really cool experiment here, in English, and here, in German. The National Poetry Library in London hosted the first public presentation of some of the results, together with work on fungi, and you can listen to a recording of the event here. If you are interested in trying it for yourself, please take a look at the "Three Rules of Multispecies Poetry"-video here.
I recommend trying one of the following two approaches, but do feel free to come up with another technique! This is early days.
Scent-Walk Acrostics or Sonnets Go on a walk with your dog, ideally down a particular street or in a park with a name and let her, to the degree that it is safe, determine where you go. Let her sniff to her heart's content! Whenever the dog stops, you stop, too, and take a sample of what she has been investigating. (You have some poetic freedom here. No need to collect fox poo unless you would like to.) For the slow and discerning dogs, try to collect as many samples as there are letters in the name of the street or park. For the speedy dogs, try to collect as many samples as you would need lines for a sonnet. Back home, ponder upon the samples, encourage but do not force your dog to investigate, discuss with her the final selection of samples to be included, and write an acrostic or a sonnet. In addition, keep the samples perhaps in a tea egg or in any other permeable container. Or dry them. While you and other humans can read the acrostic or the sonnet, your dog and other dogs, can read the scent poem, at least for a while,
Erasure Poems Pick any page from a book about dogs, preferably an old one because the language material you will be using is likely to be more interesting than if you were to pick a recent one. (Doesn't have to be in English!) Pages with illustrations can be great, too. Think about your dog and how his being could inspire you in the selection of words. Perhaps you and your dog will use the page in play, or perhaps you just give it to him to shred. Alternatively, you can use your dog's fur or fur pattern, genetic code, silhouette or whatever else you find inspiring to alter the page. Or feel free to just "doodle" to the rhythm of your Poodle-cross snoring. Use your imagination. Lose yourself in the process. Also consider what might pique a canine reader's interest. Use scent, if you like to, or think about the colours dogs can see well. When working on the poem, invite your dog to do some contact lying with you. If he declines, that's fine. Forced interactions are worse than forced rhymes. Don't take yourself too serious.
With both types of poetry, do give your dog a chance to read for themselves. Share with others - and please do share your results with me, if you care to. I am always keen to discover new and promising pawets.