I am waiting for the dog to finish his rounds of the back yard and settle in so that I can go running. As a way of passing those long minutes, I list below distinct words or phrases, with distinct and specific meanings, which Zeke has clearly understood at one point of another in his 16 years of life. I have sorted them into “parts of speech” categories. (I may need to update this a few times as more words burble up from long-term deep freeze memory.)
Optional classroom participation for extra credit: What’s the strangest word a pet of yours has learned?
[Afterthought: it may well be the case that Robin Morgan taught her dog the words “sit” and/or “stay,” and I intend neither disrespect nor intellectual colonization by listing Zeke’s vocabulary here without referencing that possibility. Thank you.]
Commands
No (more of a metacommand, I suppose)
Okay
Sit
Stay
Come
Lie Down
Cross (used in off-leash walking: he waits at the curb until he hears this)
Heel (learned at age 10)
Drop-it
Wherza (translation: “go look for”)
Speak (which he did only very reluctantly)
Jump
Up
Back (rough translation: “get your ass all the way in the back seat while I’m driving, dammit!”)
Go-get
Go-get-in
Go-look-in
Nouns
Bed
Treat
Bowl
Water
Tub
Bath
Leash
Car
Truck
Tent
Outside
Inside
Koi (a sweatsock stuffed with other sweatsocks and tied off, with a fish face drawn on in magic marker by Becky)
Stick
Ball
Tennis ball
Bone
Hedgehog
Other Hedgehog
Babar
Stuffy (generic stuffed animal)
Koosh
Kitty
Squirrel
Puke Duck (involved in a long-standing bulimia ritual, and used only for that purpose)
Mousie
Dog/Doggy
Proper nouns
Zeke
Puppy
Chris
Becky
Grandma
Jim
Craig
Elmo
Allie
Jill
Mike
Ron
Joe
Ed
Sharon
Zhivago (Zhivago was put down 14 years ago, and Zeke still responds to the name)
Smiley
Brandy
Buddy
Shadow
Spirit
Cody
Meko
Other Dog (a reification of the unnamed and theoretical dog who was always likely to snag whatever treat Zeke had)
Piggy
Bunny
Ratty
Ejaculations and unclassifiable
Good
Bad (I always wondered if Zeke thought this word was related somehow, etymologically, to “bath”)
Whoza
Walk
Hike
Nine o’clock= last meal of the day. We started using this as code for getting the food so she wouldn’t get so excited as to bound up the stairs and hurt herself. Then she got the idea that nine o’clock meant food and did the nine o’clock dance so we started spelling n-i-n-e. Which sounds enough like the word to make her launch herself to the correct spot to receive the bowl. We are reduced to making silent movie eyes at each other to indicate the clock and that somebody needs to fill the bowls.
Within the past year two adult cats have come to live with me: Mischa the Magnificent, a red longhair inherited from a friend, and Molly, a lovely silky midnight cloud of a cat, who was a street rescue. Mischa knows his name and will always come when I call. Molly also comes when I call…for Mischa. In effect, I have two cats named Mischa :>
My cat Max moved on in 2005. He was 21. I don’t remember specific words or phrases so much, although he certainly knew what I was saying. And when it was the other way around, he’d just get my attention one way or another. For instance, when necessity required, a meow, or a slap on teh head, and off in the direction of the dinner bowl, or water.
One thing he would never do is meow if he was stuck in the closet. You would have to open the door and find him. THEN he would meow loudly, and in one case I distinctly remember, head straight for the litter box. (That was after a three day weekend, locked in the closet. No shoes were unharmed. And he didn’t make a peep as I was searching the apartment, loudly calling Max? until I finally opened the last closet door.)
Strange commands?
“Get the cat”
Rubius, our rather goofy Austrialian Shephard, will run around in circles barking, in the Aussie high energy gallop mode.
And the cats are quite safe.
-d
Okay, I love trying to figure out the ritual behind “puke duck.”
In the last year of his life, my cat Cocoa learned “Dion’s.” Dion’s is this local pizza and sub sandwich joint that we rely on more often than we should for dinner. Cocoa loved deli ham and turkey, and Dion’s uses good varieties of both.
We started noticing that once one of us had suggested picking up subs from Dion’s, from that point on, Cocoa was on alert. If he’d been dozing, he woke up. He’d follow us around the apartment with his best begging face on until one of us came back with the goods, and then of course we got no peace at all unless we gave him some.
I think dogs are better with vocabulary, though, and all the other cats I’ve had have been dumb as dirt.
At some point I’ll find the jpg of my daughter (21 days) and Coonie [black & tan coonhound] and her puppies (2 days) all together in the whelping box, with Coonie looking at the Very Big Puppy with a worried, but responsible, expression.
Coonie’s unique command was—well I have no idea how to represent in print; it was sort of a gasping inhalation. It meant, You Are About To Commit a Crime; Cease and Desist.
I don’t remember how I installed this command. What is funny is that it also had an effect on my daughter—and still does; she is now 18.
Christ, Zeke’s a canine genius! That’s about 75 words there. (But I wonder if you’ve accidentally left out interrogatives: “Hungry?” And maybe there might be some complete sentences? “Let’s go get in the car!”)
Tito the Mighty Hunter knew his many names:
T
Tito
T-Buddy
T-Bone
Tito-Burrito
Dogface
Mighty Hunter
Buddy Guy
Buddy Guy Dog
Good Handsome Buddy Dog
Furry Bump
... and a lot of other stuff having to do with hikes and eating and going outside.
We had several levels of food-designations: “puppy food” was just ordinary dog food, “good puppy food” was something a little bit extra, and “SPECIAL puppy food” was some sort of doggy ambrosia – raw hamburger, rare roast beef, etc.
“Good dead thing” was probably Tito’s weirdest “word.” If he came out of the woods with a deer leg, raccoon skull, scrap of slimy deer skin, or some sort of unrecognizable carcass, it was a “good dead thing.” As in “Oooh, the Buddy Dog has a Good Dead Thing!” The walk usually paused for a bit so he could lie in the brush and gnaw on it happily. No matter how gross it was to me, I figured if it was good enough for him to WANT it in his mouth, it was good enough to HAVE it there.
When he was 16, Tito learned the word “Shake.” As in “Shake the dripping water off so I can dry you the rest of the way with a towel before you get into the car.”
I have suspected many times that dogs – some of them – are capable of learning many hundreds of words. It makes sense to me that if they can learn a handful, they can learn more. Memory’s just as important to them as it is to us, and they’re certainly aware of context in other matters. What holds them back is any sort of concentrated attempt at communication from the human side. We humans treat them as if they’re stupid children, and they quickly learn to deal with the frustration by focusing on other interests.
I watched Tito make a communication breakthrough with me and his other co-Dad, where he became able to clearly tell us “I don’t want to go on that trail, I want this other trail” and “I’m bored with this place. Let’s go somewhere else.”
But it wasn’t HIS breakthrough. It was a breakthrough by his humans, just finally getting un-stupid enough to pay attention to the fact that he was communicating things all along, but we were too obtusely homocentric to notice. The critical factors were 1) we started paying attention to the fact that he was expressing clear choices of which trails he wanted to go on, and 2) we backed off on our human “I’m the boss and you go where I say” demands and LET him pick the route.
After that, it was a delight every time to watch him pick the trail. I treasure the memory of feeling more like his partner, his equal, and less like his “master.”
I felt like he’d been my friend all along, but I had finally learned how to be HIS friend.
Damn. Wish I’d picked that up a lot sooner in his life. Just like I wish I’d been a better Dad to my first dog, Ranger the Valiant Warrior. If I get a third dog, I think I’ll finally know how to be a GOOD friend.
In dog ownership and so many other things, sometimes I think I need to live about a thousand years before I might eventually stop being such an ignorant asshole.
Liz, can you make that gasp warning noise at Hank about his self-abnegation? Thanks. It’s the only way he’ll learn.
Yeah, Zeke knows about sentences: “Go get in the truck” was very different from “Go get in the tub,” and he’d listen to the sentence very carefully, with his ear attitude changing markedly depending on the outcome. Same goes for “go for a walk” and “go for a bath.” Yes, I’m cruel.
Also: how could I leave out “Okay”? Which means “You have permission to eat whatever it is we have placed on the floor.” I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say this: we can eat steak in front of him, put our plates-with-unfinished-steak on the floor and leave the room for several minutes, and he won’t touch the food until we say “Okay.” How he got that way I have no idea: I’m a good dog trainer, but I’m not that good.
I remembered another one for my daughter. I had dogs for years before I was a mother. When I had dogs, I said “kennel” plus a hand-signal (waving my left hand from my waist up into the car) for the dogs to load up. I kept doing it when I acquired kids—I had stepchildren,then a birth-child. We did some road-trips that involved loading the vehicle with luggage and other impedimenta before loading the passengers.
I suppose that’s when I installed the “kennel” command. Kids could not get in the vehicle until the adults said so.
The “kennel” command meant, get in the vehicle and put on your seatbelts.
I didn’t realize how weird (or unusual) it was until one day when my daughter was in pre-school, and I was one of the field-trip drivers. I had 4 kids, plus my daughter. We were all lined up by the cars, and were ready to load up. Other parents had kids swarming into the cars, but not me.
Bella and Sam would get so wound up when I said “park” that I began spelling it. Then they learned to spell. They’ve been gone nearly five and one years respectively and I still can’t say “park” above a whisper.
They also perked up for “bagel.” They never did acquire a taste for Krispy Kremes.
I devolved into “Okay,” but my original command for crossing the street, breaking Heel, or just generally relaxing and doing what they wanted was “At ease.” The reason being, I say Okay in other contexts and I wanted no accidents near traffic.
Hey, Chris, what about “Wait”?
Okay, (ahem!) this is off the subject, but it’s funny, so I’m gonna tell it. Two friends of mine had Russian wolfhounds (Borzois). They’re so weirdly tall and stretched out they look like Dogs by Dali. And unbelievably fast. My dog Ranger loved to chase jackrabbits; Larry’s dog Reggie loved to CATCH them.
After seeing the movie “The Dark Crystal,” we all started calling them “Skeksies.” Anyway, one night I was over for dinner, and the dogs were right there in the kitchen with us. Larry and his wife had a high counter for eating, and we all sat on tall stools. The three dogs wove around us continuously, stretching up to place just the tips of their noses over the edge of the counter. From across the table, you could just see moving dog noses. Larry and his missus called it “snorkling,” as in “They’re snorkling the table to see what we’re having.”
The image of the table being snorkled by Skeksies still makes me laugh.
i never really meant to parent a dog, and never meant to have a really hyper dog. that probably accounts for why “damn it, GET DOWN” is in cora’s vocabulary. not that she really listens unless i stand up—if i’m sitting, she thinks i’m begging to be jumped on, all for fun.
on the other hand, there is a whistling tune i use to call the dogs, and she is always right there. i guess it does pay off to be the Food Goddess.
Next time my internet goes out I’m going to make a list like that.
BaileyF knows what “five minutes” means. She’ll wait until the clock winds down, then start whining for whatever it was she wanted again.
She also knows what her “Not a Hedgehog” toy is, which we got her before we realized it might be confusing to have one hedgehog she could squeeze until it squeaked and one she couldn’t.
She also, I think, understands the concept of “college”, which is where HannahF goes when she’s not here. One day maybe we’ll teach her the concept of “graduate school” or maybe just “Starbucks”.
Some of the more unusual phrases Molly knows:
“Cousins coming!”
This is the announcement that my brother and sister-in-law will be arriving later with their three dogs. When we say this, Molly immediately becomes very excited and watches for them in high anticipation until they arrive, even if it’s hours. So we have to be careful not to mention the cousins until shortly before they arrive. (She also knows the cousins’ names individually, so we also have to refrain from saying those too early.)
“Mommy helps.”
In Mollyspeak, this means that I am going to approach her and help her with something that needs helping right away: cleaning her messy bottom, getting something out of her foot, whatever. She immediately sits down and waits, completely submissively, for me to do whatever it is.
Also:
“Time to rest?”
“Choo choo!”
“Chewy one?’
“Green bean!”
“Ooh, steaky one!”
“Little brown chewy!”
Max (gone 3 years, 7 days) knew quite a few words/phrases, but was remarkable mainly for those that annoyed him. If you offered someone tea (not coffee!) he would bark (“Stop that!”). If you accused him of farting he would bark louder (“How dare you?”).
I think someone should stand behind Hank as he types, and rub his face in the screen when he self-abnegates.
Oh, and Chris, have you ever considered running early in the morning, when everyone else is asleep? I discovered this previously-unheard-of time of day when someone bought me bike pants. They’re great for cold weather running, but IMHO look ridiculous, so I had to run when no-one was watching. Turned out to be a lovely way to start the day.
Ah memories. Max was not unusually flatulent, but he would let a silent one loose now and then while lying down. Once, in his last year, he released an audible petard, and immediately looked around in alarm at his hind quarters. Hoist by his own, so to speak. Comedy gold.
OK, gas derailment concluded. Carry on…
Rob G, first thing in the morning when it’s still dark is far and away the best time to run. I went running at 6 am Christmas morning. It was fantastic.
Anyway, on to the real point: That’s a great list, Chris. Tober (gone 1 year, 3 months, five days) knew hardly any words. (He wasn’t the brightest dog but he made up for it in sweetness, loyalty and general good-boy-ness.) But he surely did know “wanna go for a RUN/WALK?,” [said with exaggerated inflection, of course] “wanna go bye-bye?” and “leash.”
We had a little dog named Friday, who passed away just short of six years ago. His vocabulary was perhaps comparable to Zeke’s. Our favorite was to play “hide and seek” with him. We’d say, “Where’s . . . . [whoever—he knew lots of people]?” and he would do a little play-pounce, look around, start sniffing, and then off he would go.
Leash! Gotta add “leash.”
Surely some sort of “dinner” word is in Zeke’s vocabulary. My guys perk up at “Are you hungry?”
Neither dog likes to hear the phrase, “You have to stay home now” addressed to them, especially if the other one is going to go (and each loves it when she is the “chosen” one for an errand). Fluff looks away and licks the tip of her nose 3x quickly if told she has to stay home. Apparently if she doesn’t *see* confirmation in my face, then the words don’t really mean anything. She doesn’t crowd the door, though, once told she’s not going.
Zeke’s dinner vocabulary is basically “treat.”
I left “chicken” off, because I’‘m not sure he hasn’t just been reacting to smell when we’ve said it.
Another one from my recovered memory: “We’ll be right there,” stemming from when we picked Becky up at the train station every day. Used to be if I said that into the phone, Zeke would be at the door waiting to go-get-in the truck in about a second and a half.
our buddy has a hedgehog toy, just like the other kathy’s dog, and he knows the word for sure. he adores his squeaky hedgehog, because it scares cora and she goes and hides under a table. we don’t let him play with it very often.
both dogs’ favorite words are walk and car. they don’t need to hear the words, though—somehow they can always tell when dad is getting out his dog-hike beltpack, and they go into a frenzy of excitement.
Buddy knows “double-ewe the dee”, which we started using because he would get too excited if we started discussing whether we wanted to “walk the dog” or not. Now we have to say “do you want to letter the letter” if we don’t want him to get too excited. If he learns that one, we’re considering going to “peramulate the pooch”.
I’ve threatened to kill people who say things like “C-A-R car” in my dogs’ hearing. The thought of having to spell “internal combustion engine device” to keep them from knowing I’m talking about a car ride makes me crazy.
My wife and I have to spell the word R-I-D-E, or Buster and Zoe will dash for the garage. What’s really amazing is that they know that when we leave during the work week we’re abandoning them, but they somehow know it’s the weekend, and they can sense (well in advance) when we’re going to go out to do chores, which usually involves taking them for the R-I-D-E.
They also understand “Daddy get” if they can’t reach something under a couch, for example, and they get out of the way.
Hang in there as long as it’s good for you, Zeke.
This reminds me; have you ever seen this?
Like “Mommy helps” and “Daddy get”, in our house it’s “Let Mom do it” - removing burs from coats, getting snow out of pads, retrieving a toy from under furniture. The Nors stand patiently while Mom does whatever. “Leave it” is also immediately effective, even when it’s edible and already in their mouth. Never fails to surprise me.
My Laika knows a handful of words for tricks, and we do agility with her, so there’s a pretty good vocab for all that stuff. But the funniest are the “where’s [name]” commands. It originated when we’d play hide-and-seek with her as a puppy; my wife would hide and I’d ask Laika, “Where’s Christine?” and she’d go run off to find her. She’s also learned, “Where’s Pie?” (Pie being the name of our other dog), so if we say that Laika will bat Pie in the face. Pie’s not so appreciative of that one, though, so we try to avoid the temptation.
We would converse in polar bear and python,
And we could curse in fluent kangaroo.
If people asked us, can you speak in rhinoceros,
We’d say, “Of courserous, can’t you?�
Spyder, I am deeply disappointed that you of all people would commandeer the writing of Andrea Dworkin without giving her credit. Have you left no sense of decency, sir?
Another weird word combo Fluff knows is “Nem-Kit.” It’s short for “Nemesis Kitty” and refers to the neighbor’s cat. Fluff runs the fenceline to chase this cat (which is on the far side of the fence) and huff and puff at it. I can open the back door and casually say, “nem-kit” and she’ll come charging through the house and out to the fence. Then she’ll actually stop and look for the thing.
Some readers and commenters of this thread might be interested in the book The Dogs of Babel, a novel written by the friend of a friend of mine about a linguist who tries to teach his dog to talk so that she can tell him what happened on the day his wife died. I thought it was very moving and well-written.
Also, a question: anyone have any suggestions for how to get my cat to learn “I’ll be back in one day / three days / two weeks”? Whenever I return from a trip, he greets me with reproachful meows that clearly mean “You left me and I had no idea when you were coming back!” I hope by now he knows that I always will come back.
Amanda, I’ve been working on smaller segments of time with my dog. My husband travels a lot, and the day before he comes home I tell her he’s coming home “tomorrow”. I don’t know for sure she knows what this means, but I suspect she does.
I’ve also used the term “five minutes” frequently with her, and I’m pretty sure she has a good idea what this means, as she’ll return in five minutes to remind me of what I promised her five minutes earlier.