Geddy the Bi-lingual Dog |
Complete with stunning video proof |
over the past year or so "camp 1572" has been going thru a lot of changes. almost every day there is a crew or somebody's doing something to the house. many of these crews have taken upon the extremely tedious task of attempting to gain my dog's affection. they hang out with her, throw the ball... and in some cases talk to her. now geddy will do pretty much anything to get you to throw her a tennis ball, so i had dismissed much of all this cross-cultural exposure as simple play time. however, that all changed one day when i saw one of the landscaping guys barking out commands en espanol that geddy seemed to understand. she had learned spanish... from a landscaper! that's something that mr. mutzi and all his degrees couldn't do to me in 4 years @ MUS. i was simultaneously shocked and jealous. |
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| so i approached the "teacher" and asked him what he was saying to my dog. he explained, as best he could in english, that "¡siéntese!" (sounds like "sienta say") means "sit". this would explain why geddy would sit every time he said it. |
| this was something i had to try, so for the next few weeks i would mix in a "¡siéntese!" command here and there. apparently i had very little trouble picking up the nuances of this particular landscapers dialect as geddy would pretty much sit every time. however, as i told people about this amazing discovery i was met with much skepticism. "she's just listening to your inflection" or "it's just like that counting horse @ the fair" they would say. so i decided to stand up for my dogs newfound intelligence and get video proof. |
| the setup is this, i would put a little food in the dog's bowl and let her go inside her HVAC enabled condo. as we all know, dogs go into some sort of time warp when they are eating and have no idea what's going on until they are done - a perfect time to run a test. so, when she exits her condo i shout a command, first in english and then in spanish. judge for yourself. |
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rvining     - 8/15/2006 9:17:29 AMGeddy made it thru the nite and is now at her vet. She had one of those lamp shade things on her head when I picked her up which made for some interesting aerodynamics in the back of the pickup. her heart was starting to do some funny things, but her head was still there (still knew her Spanish) and that was something they told me to watch for. |
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loh1974 - 8/16/2006 5:58:22 PM Is Geddy still a cone head with her apparatus? |
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rvining - 8/17/2006 8:55:29 AM yes she is, and it is rather amusing to watch her eat with it on. she has to go completely over the bowl and to the ground with it so its like eating in your own little hermetically sealed diner. today she went in, again, to get charcoal and fluids. this should go on for 2 weeks unless she perks up real fast. |
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loh1974 - 8/17/2006 9:27:09 PM Are her dog friends pawing it.. you know, kind of like a cast... signing it with diff color ink?? Its a good idea.... |
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rvining - 8/18/2006 9:41:14 PM well it looks as if Geddy is going to pull thru with little or no damage. Her credit may be ruined, but that really shouldn't matter anymore since she is pretty much a complete free-loader. perhaps now i can get back to adding content to this site rather than spend all my time on the 35 min drive to and from the vet each day. |
aj   - 8/19/2006 8:58:11 AMokay, i'm obviously back and school and have no clue what happened here...what happened? |
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