esrosedotblog

ACHTUNG!

I am still reeling from the news that Collie Dogs Word Power Impresses. This dog, Rico, is said to have over two hundred words in his 'vocablulary'. That means he 'understands' the words, not that he speaks them. This is not quite the same thing and makes me a little less competive.

I had been dog-proud about Franklin's ability to understand over thirty words. I quit counting after that, as I figured that was pretty good and people seemed impressed when I would mention it; the whole point of counting in the first place, actually. Franklin is not impressed and we are not too impressed once the news gets stale. In fact, Franklin doesn't seem to think it is any big deal. He just works little by little to 'get it'.

There is no mention in this article about Rico getting his masters to learn things. As it happens, John and I now respond to about forty signals that Franklin gives us. There is 'out' and 'dog biscuit'. There is the signal to turn left or right on a walk. He sits and turns his head in the desired direction. I am pretty good on the various walk commands. There is 'stop' and 'go'. I do pretty well at 'bag the poop' as well.

This whole thing of sharing language is pretty important with dogs and people and I think the communication goes both ways. I know that both Franklin and John and I all think of some things at the same time. Only yesterday, we were going to go to the dog groomer and all of us thought 'Jeep' at the same time! We went right to it and Franklin jumped into the back just like that. We used the doors. Another example is the business of bedtime; the ritual. When it is time to wrap the day up, we all think and head for the 'spa'. All you have to say to Franklin is 'spa' and he is out toward the back. So are we. 'Hot' is a good one too. We all go out and, virtually in unison we all 'say' "shit it is HOT out here". Not in so many words, of course, but the shoulder crunch and the pickup of pace to the car says it all.

There is one issue that really bothers me about Rico. I was OK about his word power. Some dogs have to have more skill than others and we have not raised Franklin to be a 'circus dog'; no tricks like 'speak' and 'roll over'; things like that. But, I had not expected that the issue of language would ever come up. According to this article, this Rico dog responds to all these 200 words in GERMAN! Shit, goddam. We have never, ever talked French to Franklin or Icelandic or any other language but American-English. I don't count baby-talk but that was over when he was one or so. Now, the ante has been raised by some Collie. A second language. It never occurred to me.

So we are starting over. Franklin's first word (very functional) was pee-pee (the liquid not the organ). I am going to go look it up in the German/English dictionary. It should be easy actually, as it looks like it is the same word, only the pronunciation is different; harder consonants. Then it will be 'sit'. I think that is 'standzen' or something. SitzendeDeustch. I gotta go. Lots of work to be done.