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Jewish World Review Dec. 9, 2005 / 8 Kislev, 5766 The Bark Stops Here By Gene Weingarten
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Do you have a dog? Me, too. Did you ever wish you could know what your dog was thinking? Nah, me neither. We dog owners think of our dogs as intelligent, perceptive, loving, intuitive creatures, but we suspect that if we could find out what they were thinking, it would come as a profound disappointment. ("Me want eat.")
The fact is, we get so fond of our dogs that we from time to time lose sight of the fact that our dogs are, when you get right down to it, dogs. Many years ago, my family and I were walking along the bridle path in Rock Creek Park with our then-dog, a Labrador retriever named Clementine. The two kids were walking ahead with Clem, and my wife and I were behind them on the trail. As we watched dog and kids frolicking, we discussed how much a part of the family Clementine was: that she was a personable presence in our home whose breadth of emotions rivaled those of humans; whose sense of responsibility made her not only a loving pet but practically a third child, an older sibling, a trusted companion. Just then we turned a corner and saw Clementine, up ahead, wolfing down an enormous loaf of horse poo.
This is why I had mixed emotions when I read an ad for a new Japanese product called "Bow-Lingual." Bow-Lingual purports to be a dog translator. You affix a wireless microphone to your dog's collar, and when he barks, a translation appears on a handheld display. The device was supposedly designed by experts in dog psychology. It costs $120.
Now, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: Even an idiot like me wouldn't shell out good money for something like that. And you'd be right, except for two important words you didn't figure in: "expense" and "account."
So here I am fastening the Bow-Lingual mike onto the collar of my current dog, Harry S Truman. I have a plan.
Harry is a yellow Lab. He is almost 12 years old, and under ordinary circumstances he displays all of the exuberance and energy of a baked potato. But once a day, roughly at 3 p.m., Harry becomes a dynamo. He lives for this moment: the arrival of the mailman.
Like all dogs, Harry hates the mailman — part of a feral response dating to prehistoric times, when domesticated wolves were routinely harassed by unionized postal workers. And so, whenever the mailman arrives, Harry greets him with barks and snarls. As the mailman feeds the mail through the slot, Harry grabs each letter and flings it over his shoulder, so as to get at the mail monster and chew him into little blue pieces.
(I think it further infuriates Harry that the mail monster is often laughing uproariously at this moment.) The result of this confrontation is that virtually every piece of mail I receive has tooth marks in it, often in really annoying places: ("Pay to the order of Gene W(puncture here)rten...)
I'm convinced that Harry keeps up this house-protective vigil because, in dog logic, it is quite successful. In Harry's life, the mailman has come to the house 3,400 times, and every single time after Harry's snarling, slavering intervention, the mailman has gone away. What goes through Harry's mind during these encounters? I asked the Bow-Lingual. This is how it interpreted his remarks:
"%*!$%!"
I admit I was impressed. Alas, I tried it the next day, too. Same mailman, same spit-flying, mail-flying hissy fit. This time the Bow-Lingual translated it thus:
"Show me the love."
This was when I began to suspect that the Bow-Lingual had about the same uncanny accuracy as your average Magic 8-Ball. Many other experiments followed, with disappointingly haphazard results. When I play the harmonica, for example, Harry always howls — a reaction my family claims requires no translation. The Bow-Lingual at first identified the howl as:
"Something's bothering me," which drew great laughter from the family. But the second time I tried it, it said Harry was saying: "I'm the boss here," which either was an allusion to Springsteen, which was doubtful, or a disappointing non sequitur. That is when I decided to take Bow-Lingual off the dog and try it elsewhere. The results were no more satisfying. For example, when I put it on the toilet and flushed, the Bow-Lingual reported that the toilet was saying, "I'm jealous."
I was regarding this whole experiment to be a total flop when I decided to give it one more shot. I found a recording of Howard Dean's suicidal "I Have a Scream" speech, and activated the Bow-Lingual just for the "Yeaagghhhhh!"
It translated:
"I might bite!"
So, in all fairness, I have to say the jury's still out.
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