<- Yukon May 28,
Alarm went off at 5am, and next thing I know, Samantha is up on the bed cuddling up beside me for a belly rub. Rather groggy and reaching for the alarm, I pet her ears, rubbed her belly and told her to get down. Puppy eyes! I’m a sucker, I know… I pet her a few more times before pushing her off so I could get up. My bed sits against the wall, so I can’t get out the other way. Freya doesn’t get up and greet me, but lies on the floor wagging her tail. I check her nose and she’s still a bit warm and feeling punky, so I pet her a bit, and it makes her feel a bit better. Outside with the boys, she takes up her usual spot on my left as Yukon and Demon vie for my attention. After a while and they have all had their morning biscuit, I go get my coffee.
James had made a mess all over the counters, so I roust him out of bed to clean it up. He is obviously not very happy about that, but he knows better. At 20 years, he is old enough to move out and has had the rules explained to him very carefully. #1 being, thou shalt clean up thy messes afore thy mother expels thee. I find it rather effective most of the time.
Of course by the time the fur is flying, Jim is up, and James is noisily going about the business of cleanup. Jim and I sit out on the porch with the dogs for a long time, since I will be working late tonight, I asked to go in late. As Demon passes by me, I comb out his shed as often as possible, which gets him and Yukon in the game of ‘eat my hairball’. Bleh, this is one game I’m not playing! Out on the porch, though, it is obvious why Freya is feeling a bit punky. The edging around the second rug we picked up for them has been eaten. Sigh… I tell Jim and James to watch and make sure she poops today because the rug bits might stop up her intestines and that would be bad. If she hasn’t by the time I get home, she gets a treat of hamburger grease. If no poops tomorrow, off to the vet.
We get to the county clerk with barely enough time to get Jim’s license plates, and I get in to work barely on time.
I got to thinking, yeah I know, another dangerous pastime of mine… heh, but I was thinking about how dogs learn their names. Why would a dog associate a human word with their name? For all we know, they may have named themselves Ggrrroollrwawrgrr, and just humor us when we call them names like Ginger. Yet in all of this, they learn that a word when we call it, means we want them to come to us. And not just any word, but their name, and they know it means them and not the other dog.
This, to me, is a fascinating concept and shows that dogs really are intelligent enough to understand enough human speech to distinguish between names like Freya and Samantha. I think secretly Samantha is really Grawwwrrrooogrrruff, which means “mighty destroyer of all digging rodents”, and Freya is really Roollrawrgrrroo, which means “chewer of all things unchewable”. Ggrroollrwawrgrr must be Demon’s real name, which means “eater of anything that rolls on the ground and is smaller than me”, and Yukon is Hoowllaraoowlgrr, which means “great howling philosopher”. He has the cutest “owoowah” when he wants to be petted, but it also may be a demand in dog speech. “Pet me you oaf of an ungainly creature!”
Alarm went off at 5am, and next thing I know, Samantha is up on the bed cuddling up beside me for a belly rub. Rather groggy and reaching for the alarm, I pet her ears, rubbed her belly and told her to get down. Puppy eyes! I’m a sucker, I know… I pet her a few more times before pushing her off so I could get up. My bed sits against the wall, so I can’t get out the other way. Freya doesn’t get up and greet me, but lies on the floor wagging her tail. I check her nose and she’s still a bit warm and feeling punky, so I pet her a bit, and it makes her feel a bit better. Outside with the boys, she takes up her usual spot on my left as Yukon and Demon vie for my attention. After a while and they have all had their morning biscuit, I go get my coffee.
James had made a mess all over the counters, so I roust him out of bed to clean it up. He is obviously not very happy about that, but he knows better. At 20 years, he is old enough to move out and has had the rules explained to him very carefully. #1 being, thou shalt clean up thy messes afore thy mother expels thee. I find it rather effective most of the time.
Of course by the time the fur is flying, Jim is up, and James is noisily going about the business of cleanup. Jim and I sit out on the porch with the dogs for a long time, since I will be working late tonight, I asked to go in late. As Demon passes by me, I comb out his shed as often as possible, which gets him and Yukon in the game of ‘eat my hairball’. Bleh, this is one game I’m not playing! Out on the porch, though, it is obvious why Freya is feeling a bit punky. The edging around the second rug we picked up for them has been eaten. Sigh… I tell Jim and James to watch and make sure she poops today because the rug bits might stop up her intestines and that would be bad. If she hasn’t by the time I get home, she gets a treat of hamburger grease. If no poops tomorrow, off to the vet.
We get to the county clerk with barely enough time to get Jim’s license plates, and I get in to work barely on time.
I got to thinking, yeah I know, another dangerous pastime of mine… heh, but I was thinking about how dogs learn their names. Why would a dog associate a human word with their name? For all we know, they may have named themselves Ggrrroollrwawrgrr, and just humor us when we call them names like Ginger. Yet in all of this, they learn that a word when we call it, means we want them to come to us. And not just any word, but their name, and they know it means them and not the other dog.
This, to me, is a fascinating concept and shows that dogs really are intelligent enough to understand enough human speech to distinguish between names like Freya and Samantha. I think secretly Samantha is really Grawwwrrrooogrrruff, which means “mighty destroyer of all digging rodents”, and Freya is really Roollrawrgrrroo, which means “chewer of all things unchewable”. Ggrroollrwawrgrr must be Demon’s real name, which means “eater of anything that rolls on the ground and is smaller than me”, and Yukon is Hoowllaraoowlgrr, which means “great howling philosopher”. He has the cutest “owoowah” when he wants to be petted, but it also may be a demand in dog speech. “Pet me you oaf of an ungainly creature!”
Samantha, I believe, has named G’Kar Grrroogrraaawwrrruf, “the red menace”, and Yukon has named Valkrys Hrroollrwaooorr “old pretty one”, or maybe just “mother of all dogs” as he seems to love her and dances around her out in the yard. He follows her around a lot which Valkrys finds amusing at times and annoying at others.
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