Creek Running North

Buddy knows “double-ewe the dee”, which we started using because he would get too excited if we started discussing whether we wanted to “walk the dog” or not.  Now we have to say “do you want to letter the letter” if we don’t want him to get too excited.  If he learns that one, we’re considering going to “peramulate the pooch”.

If we could talk to the animals, just imagine it
Chatting to a chimp in chimpanzee
Imagine talking to a tiger, chatting to a cheetah
What a neat achievement that would be.

If we could talk to the animals, learn their languages
Maybe take an animal degree.
We’d study elephant and eagle, buffalo and beagle,
Alligator, guinea pig, and flea.

We would converse in polar bear and python,
And we could curse in fluent kangaroo.
If people asked us, can you speak in rhinoceros,
We’d say, “Of courserous, can’t you?”

If we could talk to the animals, learn their languages
Think of all the things we could discuss
If we could walk with the animals, talk with the animals,
Grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals,
And they could squeak and squawk and speak and talk to us.

I’ve threatened to kill people who say things like “C-A-R car” in my dogs’ hearing.  The thought of having to spell “internal combustion engine device” to keep them from knowing I’m talking about a car ride makes me crazy.

My wife and I have to spell the word R-I-D-E, or Buster and Zoe will dash for the garage.  What’s really amazing is that they know that when we leave during the work week we’re abandoning them, but they somehow know it’s the weekend, and they can sense (well in advance) when we’re going to go out to do chores, which usually involves taking them for the R-I-D-E.
They also understand “Daddy get” if they can’t reach something under a couch, for example, and they get out of the way.
Hang in there as long as it’s good for you, Zeke.

This reminds me; have you ever seen this?

Like “Mommy helps” and “Daddy get”, in our house it’s “Let Mom do it” - removing burs from coats, getting snow out of pads, retrieving a toy from under furniture. The Nors stand patiently while Mom does whatever.  “Leave it” is also immediately effective, even when it’s edible and already in their mouth. Never fails to surprise me.

My Laika knows a handful of words for tricks, and we do agility with her, so there’s a pretty good vocab for all that stuff. But the funniest are the “where’s [name]” commands. It originated when we’d play hide-and-seek with her as a puppy; my wife would hide and I’d ask Laika, “Where’s Christine?” and she’d go run off to find her. She’s also learned, “Where’s Pie?” (Pie being the name of our other dog), so if we say that Laika will bat Pie in the face. Pie’s not so appreciative of that one, though, so we try to avoid the temptation.

We would converse in polar bear and python,
And we could curse in fluent kangaroo.
If people asked us, can you speak in rhinoceros,
We’d say, “Of courserous, can’t you?�

Spyder, I am deeply disappointed that you of all people would commandeer the writing of Andrea Dworkin without giving her credit. Have you left no sense of decency, sir?

There was a certain decency drain out there for me being in your favorite desert, strolling around in washes.  Or maybe it was the temporary proximity to UA, where my sister spent several grad years being close with one of Andrea’s good buddies (initials RMB).  It also could have been the strange post by string theorist Clifford Johnson over at Asymptotia about Elephant Shrews and EDGE, as in putting me over. But for me it probably is the grunt and squeak and squawk!

Another weird word combo Fluff knows is “Nem-Kit.” It’s short for “Nemesis Kitty” and refers to the neighbor’s cat.  Fluff runs the fenceline to chase this cat (which is on the far side of the fence) and huff and puff at it.  I can open the back door and casually say, “nem-kit” and she’ll come charging through the house and out to the fence.  Then she’ll actually stop and look for the thing.

Some readers and commenters of this thread might be interested in the book The Dogs of Babel, a novel written by the friend of a friend of mine about a linguist who tries to teach his dog to talk so that she can tell him what happened on the day his wife died. I thought it was very moving and well-written.

Also, a question: anyone have any suggestions for how to get my cat to learn “I’ll be back in one day / three days / two weeks”? Whenever I return from a trip, he greets me with reproachful meows that clearly mean “You left me and I had no idea when you were coming back!” I hope by now he knows that I always will come back.

Amanda, I’ve been working on smaller segments of time with my dog. My husband travels a lot, and the day before he comes home I tell her he’s coming home “tomorrow”. I don’t know for sure she knows what this means, but I suspect she does.

I’ve also used the term “five minutes” frequently with her, and I’m pretty sure she has a good idea what this means, as she’ll return in five minutes to remind me of what I promised her five minutes earlier.