Dogspeak

I hated waking up early to go to school.  My mother worked most mornings, so I had to ride the bus, which wasn’t terrible, except that I lived in the unfortunate geographical position that required me to wake up even earlier, for my bus stop was the first of the day.  After eating a sugary breakfast the older me doesn’t understand was both possible and so frequent, I hoisted my backpack over my shoulders and checked the time on the microwave clock, which often reminded me of my tardiness.  Before heading out the door and sprinting down the street, I would pet the family dog.

She usually lay curled on top of the couch in a position more feline than canine.  Sometimes I would tell her how lucky she is to sleep all day.  To remain in good standing, her only requirement was that she not run away, get into the trash can, or shit on the carpet too often.  In return, we would shelter her, feed her, and bestow considerate attention upon her.  As a child, I envied the family dog. 

She lived in an ideal state of laziness and gluttony without the impending guilt.  Nobody told her when to wake up, and nobody expected her to do the dishes.  The possibilities of her brain and body are extremely limited compared to ours.  Her world was reduced to simple desires, so excitement came easy.  The master’s routine homecoming, a soft patch of grass to pee on, a dropped morsel of food snatched up from the floor, an opportunity to sniff foreign odors around the block:  that’s all it takes for them to be thrilled.  The human equivalent of a dog’s euphoria, I assume, is usually the result of an extraordinary orgasm, a snort of cocaine, or the virginal sky-dive.

At a glance, this relationship seems parasitic, but there’s much to learn from a dog.  I am now living with eight dogs, a rare opportunity that enables me to scrutinize a dog’s effect on a person’s home life.  My aunt owns five of the dogs, fosters two more, and my brother has a cocker spaniel named Duncan.  Since I began collecting unemployment, the weather hasn’t been so great, so I’ve been stuck inside the house for several days in a row.  In the past week, my life has been very dog-like. 

When I am alone, I will talk to the dogs in a joking fashion with a voice I do not use with humans.  I should feel weird to admit this, but I think everyone has a baby-voice they use only to communicate with dogs.  Dogs have the uncanny ability to crumble our social inhibitions, so, naturally, this baby-voice is used freely when our guard is down.  But where does this voice come from?  A dog-voice can vary from person to person, but I usually find them all to be squeaky and grammatically incorrect.  My brother has invented a voice, and entire persona, for his cocker spaniel Duncan, and I have taken part.

 

The mental construct that is Duncan’s persona is that of a sarcastic, foul-mouthed comedian with a sibilant slur.  The character often pluralizes non-count nouns that traditionally do not end in S.  This made-up speech is replete with improper pronouns and a lack of subject-verb agreements, such as:  Them other dogs is annoying.  When barking is imminent, there’s an unexpected amount of cursing, especially when other dogs are near. 

People without dogs talk to themselves, but people with dogs talk to their dogs.  At a glance, both actions are the same and rarely do they signify sanity, yet talking to a dog is much more accepted as normal-ish behavior.  The personification of the dog is an attempt to give voice to his impenetrable thoughts.  When you humanize a dog’s actions, you can’t help but be absurd.  Most pet-owners, I suspect, are trying to substantiate the dog’s role in the family and create an illusion of a mutual understanding through spoken word.  Undoubtedly, some dogs can learn vocabulary words, perform tricks, and identify objects.  A dog’s role at home can range anywhere from a pretty decoration that moves, a science experiment, a quiet companion, or a therapist.

We buy dogs because we are bored, and because plants often don’t give us enough life in our living rooms.  A dog infuses a space with vitality.  While some dogs linger in the background, others are major characters.  A dog and its owner, when together, can fuse into the same character.  In some ways, the persona——this dog voice——is his master’s alter ego.  When the owner is alone, the dog voice is mostly used to narrate benign actions, belt out songs to a non-judgmental audience, and to allow your aggression to exit safely from your mind. 

During a social situation, the dog voice takes on revealing complexities.  I’ve noticed it’s used primarily to reaffirm facts and opinions.  I’ve visited friends and family members with excited dogs running in circles in celebration of my homecoming, which wasn’t the usual trip to the grocery store.  The owners would then speak to me through the dog using the dog-voice:  You’re home!  You’re home!  We missed you, didn’t we?

I visited a friend from my hometown who recently bought a house and a new dog.  As I meandered through the rooms, the dog followed, sniffing me all the way.  The pet-owner would then introduce each room with the dog-voice:  This is our dining room.  This is the living room, and the couch, where we’re not allowed.  The dog was the ambassador, translator, master of his domain, so naturally I had to go through him. 

I’ve even conducted entire conversations through dogs with aloof relatives I visited out of curiosity and a pulling obligation to end the visitation drought.  Upon entering their unfamiliar home and making the necessary greetings with my family members, I then stoop down to pet the dogs and inquire their names.  Despite our lack of camaraderie, the normal voice disappears and the dialogue resumes in the dog-voice:  He says, My name is So-and-so, and I’m four years old.

The usage of He says or She says is very telling.  Seemingly, only the master can understand what the dog is thinking.  But what this farce truly reveals is our discomfort with one another.  Our communication is diluted through the dog who is busy sniffing my recent history.  It’s easy to hide behind a dog’s unconditional affection, but it’s more difficult to look a person in the eyes and tell them where you’ve been.  You can impose your own thoughts onto a dog, but you can only wonder about the inner machinations of another person’s mind. Whether we’re talking to a dog or through a dog, we’re talking about ourselves:  what we know to be true and those thoughts we’re afraid to call our own.