The genius of my two unlikely linguists
MY dogs can speak in English… No wait. Stay!! (See what I did there?) Before you allow yourself an eye-roll and to drift onward to preamble the musings of my esteemed colleagues, let me explain. They. Can. Talk. Initially it started with a few occasional greetings. The odd hello here or there depending on how chatty they were feeling at the time. Nothing a quick nip around YouTube couldn’t give you in a matter of seconds. But they are spewing sentences these days, quite the linguists. Now, when I ask “do you want to go outside”, their fuzzy faces light up followed with a unanimous chorus of “yes, we want a walk”. Quite clear.
Admittedly, written down this is probably a bit more accurate, “barkeeeess wee aaannt ahhh waaooooooollk… bark”. But pronunciation can be refined, in this I have no doubt, after all they have thus far displayed all the traits of fuzzy geniuses.
An animal person I most definitely am.
The two who have stolen my heart in recent years are called Paddy and Pippa. Paddy is a Collie and Pippa a Rottweiler cross Labrador. Basically her da was not supposed to court her ma. But he did and I’m glad because she has brought buckets of joy to our family.
She brings joy to Paddy too... most of the time. She also enjoys a good punch-up with him if she thinks he’s getting any notions.
It’s hard not to be mad about your pets. I am writing this conscious of not being too gushing for fear of being labelled a dog-lady… a mere sliver above the realms of cat-lady. But it’s hard to resist when talking about something that constantly gives so much love.
I think if they were humans it would be a completely different story. Imagine coming home to: “Hiya, you look great, you’re so great, did I tell you you were great because you ARE. I love you. I love you. I love you.” Maybe some would enjoy that but in my view I, who could be described as chirpy, would start to sag. Perhaps I should be glad my dogs are still relatively new to this whole mastering of same language malarkey.
I really do think the world of pets. At one time I had 13 cats, a crow with a broken wing, (RIP Clive), a dog family, Ben, Daisy and their daughter Rose, a hamster called Homer, and a horse called Sally. A host of feathery, furry faces who all played their part in the many happy memories from my childhood and in the years since.