Dogs Of Babble

Dear Dog Lady,

I had a haunting dream in which my basset hound, Sadie, spoke to me. She didn’t say much, but Sadie’s words formed a scrap of dog-speak I keep hearing in my head. In the dream, I had taken Sadie to a tot lot for dogs. I stood near the slide and waited for Sadie to come down. As my hound slid by me, our eyes locked and she said simply, “Hello, Mark.’’ Her tone was matter-of-fact, yet warm and familiar.

Dog Lady, I know you don’t claim to be a pet psychic or a Dr. Freud for fuzzy creatures, but how do you interpret this?

Mark, Berkeley, Calif.

Mark, hark! Your dream opens the door for Dog Lady to opine about the verbal chasm between humans and their dogs. It is one of the great frustrations of dog owners that our dogs can’t talk to us in a language we can readily understand. We love these wordless creatures so, naturally, we want to get inside their heads to understand what they think and feel.

Thank you for acknowledging that Dog Lady is not a Fido Freudian. I venture to suggest you ache to know what Sadie would say to you if she could talk to you. You dreamt of your pet in a playground setting. Your dog is like a child to you. I’m surprised Sadie didn’t say “Hi, Dad” instead of “Hello, Mark.”

In your waking world, Sadie doesn’t banter in English, Urdu, French, or Swahili, but she does communicate with you. In body language, dogs speak volumes when their ears are up or flattened, when their tails wag or go limp, when their backs arch or relax, when they curl up in a hiding place or enthusiastically join the crowd.

Each yip, bark, squeal, growl, groan, or sigh, is part of Sadie’s language. You have to decode your dog’s dialect as best you can. Sensitive dog owners have an ear and eye to interpret what their dogs are saying to them. Usually, the best we can hope to understand is when our dogs demand: “Yo! Gotta go potty. Take me outside. Now!”

I ask you to imagine the psychological chaos if our dogs really could talk to us. We’d be forced into a relationship with them far different than the silent, unencumbered connection that exists now. Instead of getting vibes from our animals, we would be confronted by them. They would become as difficult and emotionally demanding as our human friends and family. We’d have to deal with our dogs on a far rougher emotional playing field.

It sounds, however, that if your Sadie could speak, she wouldn’t be too challenging. In your dream, when she spoke to you, she merely said “hello.” She didn’t chew your ear off

Posted by Dog Lady at September 2, 2003 08:40 AM