It’s really cute and all to suppose that our household pets understand words.
They understand dick-squat.
Sorry to ruin the pet party.
Sure, Newman will come when I say “Newman”, but he’ll also come when I say “Stuman”, “Glueman”, “Dooman” etc. You get the idea.
Said with the correct tone, Newman will also come to “Shitface”, “Hemorrhoids”, “Rotting Chicken” and “Taylor Swift”.
If he really understood words, when I have a cookie in my hand and call “Colon Face”, Newman would think, “Man, I’d love a cookie right now and my daddy has one, but clearly he wants to give it to a dog named “Colon Face”, which is a pretty strange dog name.”
Pets, especially dogs, understand general sounds, voice tones and eye contact. Sometimes the syllabic makeup also counts. If I call him “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, he’s licking his groin before I get to “fragil”
That’s all.
There are lots of people who love to assign meaning and intention to pet behaviour, and that meaning and intention just happens to correspond to the way humans think. Because all creatures, obviously, strive to behave like humans. I try to as well.
There’s a word for that. Anthropomorphism, which, I think, makes a great dog name.
My wife also suffers from anthropomorphism. She tries to assign all kinds of meaning to my behaviour, and it’s a complete waste of time. I don’t even know what my behaviour means.
On top of that, I answer to “Cold Beer”. “Come here Cold Beer.”
Captain knows the words Treat, Captain, Walk and Dog. He also knows the word Sit, but only if I’m holding a Treat.
Your wife has you trained well Paul. And as far as pets go, I think you will be getting hate mail. LOL
Yes it appears I’m in the doghouse.
I know damn well that my cat knows her name. She knows when it’s dinner time and when it’s time for me to turn on the bathtub faucet so that she can play with the drips.
Of course, she knows what I am saying when I call her, when I tell her to go into the kitchen and eat her dinner and when I suggest that she disengage herself from my feet when I’m in the bathroom and go get a drink of water. She just chooses to ignore me because that’s what cat’s do — ignore us — and they are good at it.
So you are wrong. Pets understand us. They just don’t want to bother with things they don’t want to do.
😀
My dog just read this and he completely agrees with you. Contradicting his master – he will be punished.