Buster (the wonder-dog) is a 22-lb Jack-Russel terrier. That’s my best guess, anyway – he was abandoned as a puppy so I don’t know anything about his “heritage”. He is often smarter than I give him credit for. Sometimes I have a general idea of what’s going through his canine mind, but occasionally he cracks the communication barrier and communicates his thoughts clearly.
Once, when I was washing some dishes, he was watching me intently – he knew I was getting ready to fix some food. He started dancing around on his hind legs when I pulled the last dishes out of the sink and set them to dry. Then I noticed a plate I had missed. I walked over and got it and as I started back towards the sink (and not the stove) Buster stopped dancing and said: “OwwwwuH!” I wish I could have recorded it – I can’t do it justice with mere letters and punctuation.
Another time we were out in the van running errands. Buster loves to go riding in the van, because occasionally we drive up to a building and someone hands us a bag of food! Buster gets happily agitated every time we go to a drive-through. This time, however, I threw him a curve. I went to the drive-through at my local bank. When I had completed my transaction and began to drive off, buster began whining and looking very pointedly at me – then the bank window we had just left, as if to say: “Hey pal, didn’t you just forget something?”
The cat who owns me knows that when I get out my insulin and needle, I’m about to eat. She makes sure that I know that she would like some of whatever I’m having. Including vegetables. She likes a lot of veggies, and some fruits, too. She knows that the fridge is full of interesting things to eat, and will frequently paw at it if she’s in the mood for a snack. I usually have a bag of deli turkey or ham in there, for my midnight meals. She is accustomed to getting a slice of this when I have MY meal.
She can make a vocalization that sounds like “Mama”. The first time she did this, I couldn’t believe my ears and fussed over her immensely, so she did it again. She will now say “Mama” to anyone if she wants attention or food.
K. I was outside work one day. Smoking a cig. With several co-workers, not smoking, but they were there… Anyways… I’m standing there, in the parking lot, when a kitten, a cute little kitty, comes walking across the alley next to our lot. A VERY young kitty. How he got out on his own, I’ll never know. Anyways… he looked at me, and I looked at him… EYE CONTACT. He walked straight to me. I picked him up and I was his mommy. (I’m a guy… btw…) I took him home, put him in a seperate room from our other (MANY!) cats. I went home for many days at lunchtime. I let him walk all over my chest. Let him scratch my skin. Let him knock over my drink… Bonded with him. My point… I am his mommy… he is my boy. I sit “on the throne” in the morning… he comes in the bathroom and TALKS to me. He meows… I “meow” back at him. Over and over. I’m considering moving clear across country some time this year. I’ll garauntee Smokey is coming with me.
Our boat cat (poor little guy still doesn’t have a name) does what my husband calls his “Tuna Dance” - in addition to the kibble that sits out all day, the cat gets half a can of tuna as his evening meal. So when my sweetie gets home from work (or returns from anywhere) the cat does the Tuna Dance. Can’t wait till I’m living aboard with them to witness this spectacle.
The dog, on the other hand, converses mentally. She’ll sit beside me, lay a paw on my arm or leg, which ever is closer, and stare. That means either “Feed me” or “I want to go out” - depending on the time of day, I can usually pick the correct one.
My cat bitches at me if I leave him outside to long. He waits at the door until I wake up in the morning, and then when I finally let him in he starts MEH! MEH! MEH! MEH!. It’s funny.
Our Boy Cat can quite clearly say “No” when he’s mad. Well it actually sounds like “NOOoooeoeoeo”. Like this morning, I’m sitting on the bed combing my hair, Boy comes up for scratches. Baby Cat (who is twice Boy’s size) jumps on the bed to share “mom-time”. Boy gets jealous and NOOOOooooeo - he goes to the foot of the bed to pout. Very sad.
He’ll also say No when taken to the bathtub or shown the cat-carrier.
The late great English springer spaniel Miss Emily Kimberly was on medication that made her drink a lot and pee a lot. So quite often she would empty her water bowl and we might not notice for a while. Then she’d do what dogs are programmed to do and drink out of that nifty bowl in the bathroom that was always full of cold water. We’d hear the lid go FLIP and go out to fill her dish.
This cause-and-effect chain of events did not go unnoticed. One day we heard the FLIP, went back to the kitchen, and saw Miss Emily peeking out of the bathroom door to see if we’d heard her signal. She never drank out of the toilet again.
Murphy (our AB) is very good at making a point, particularly when he needs to go bathroom. He’ll plop down in front of you, stare you in the face, and “whoof” softly. We’ll ask “Do you need to go outside? Bathroom?” This is met by another whoof, and usually a little bounce with the front legs. Or a loud whoof and a big bounce, or possibly an outright bark and a shove with the front paws, depending on the intensity of his need to go potty. He also has his “sleepy whine” when he’s ready for a nap.
Two of our three cats are very communicative and well aware of how to get what they want.
Meep (Russian Blue girl) does it two ways: when she wants her tummy rubbed, she’ll stand there and look at you until she’s got your attention, then do a slow-motion flop over on her side, roll over on her back, and put all four paws in the air. She will then continue to stare at you in a ‘come hither’ manner until you come over and do her bidding. If she’s giving you the pre-flop look and she doesn’t think she has your full attention, she’ll cock her head sideways a couple of times as if to say, “hey, are you watching?” Her other trick is at night when we refill their water dishes, she’ll jump up on the clothes hamper and make a sweet little “Meow?” which we both know means that she wants us to stand there holding the water dish for her so she can drink. Whipped? Us? No way!
Tenshi (Singapura boy) has a trick that just charms the hell out of us when he wants to be petted. He’ll come over to you, put his paw under your hand, and lift it up enough for him to stuff his head under it. Naturally we can’t deny him a nice petting after this, and he knows it. He’ll also occasionally carry on long conversations with us, meowing and then answering each time we meow in reply.
Our youngest Singapura, Ozzy, hasn’t learned yet how to get his way, but since his habit is to come into our bedroom at night, flop down next to one or the other of us with his cheek on ours and fall asleep purring, he pretty much gets whatever he wants anyway.
My Molly-dog likes chocolate. A lot. As you may or may not know, chocolate is not good for dogs, so I make every effort to keep it out of her reach.
One day Mr. N.Sane and I were enjoying a box of chocolates–I gave us each a truffle and then put the box up on a high shelf. Molly sat there and stared at us very pointedly. When I asked her what she wanted, she looked at the box of chocolates and then looked back at me. Needless to say, she didn’t get any.
She’s been good at communicating since she was a puppy. I swear there was one day that she tried to say “thank you.” It came out more like “rowlr-rowlrlr” but I knew what she meant. She looked really frustrated and never tried to talk again.
My kitties, Jake and Scout, certainly communicate with me on a daily basis. Since they came to live with me in August each one has started telling me exactly what she or he wants.
Scout knows that she gets a treat in the morning before I leave the apartment (or even if I’m just hanging out at home). Once I’m showered and dressed, she watches me closely. If I even appear to not be heading into the kitchen, she walkes up to me and just looks at me. Then she walks into the kitchen, expecting me to follow. If I don’t, she comes back out, sits down in front of me and whines.
Jake doesn’t eat treats (I can give them to him, but he just ignores them). Instead, he has this squeak that he makes when he wants attention. He will walk through the apartment, squeaking until he finds me. Where I am determines his next step. If I’m at the table using the laptop he’ll just jump up in front of me, plop down on the table and put his head on my right arm. If I’m on the sofa, its a jump onto the sofa arm, then a head butt right on the nose to make me pay attention.
Of course, Jake also likes to play chase around the apartment with me. I can tell he wants to do this when he starts acting startled every time I move toward him, even slowly. As soon as I start playing, he runs into the bedroom and under the bed. I leave the room, and he pokes his head around the corner at me and squeaks until I chase him again. It’s loads of fun.
Fatcat (the smart one who flushes the toilet repeatedly for his own amusement) used to have a very unsettling habit of repeating Important Words. Well, at least he’d repeat them as best he could - using the same number of syllables and an approximation of your tone.
E.g./
Human: “Dinner?”
Fatcat: “Wapwap?” (sometimes it was more like “Mnap? Mnap?”)
Human: “Chip?”
Fatcat: “Wip?”
Ah, but that was back in kittenhood when he also used to eat with his hands, like a gentleman.
Nowadays, he’s far more inelegant. He prefers his all-purpose Ethel Merman “Yaawww” and physical displays that are very explicit.
E.g./
When he was hungry, he use to push his empty bowl with his paw like a hockey puck until he could hit you in the back of your heels with it. If you then did not put food in it, he would put his paw on the edge of his water dish and flip it, sending water everywhere. To combat this, we got him metal dishes that sat in a wire frame. Ha! Thwarted!.. Or so we thought.
Alas, now he just finds a cat toy to bang against the metal dish CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Auggie, my Jack Russell / Aussie mix, is firmly convinced that squirrels are Evil Demon Beings Sent To Murder Us All. When he’s out in the yard, he barks his fool head off at them while standing on his hind legs. His favorite chair (nope, no spoiled dogs here!) is in front of a window, and there’s a small cedar tree on the other side of the window. When there’s a squirrel in that tree, Auggie will stand with his hind feet on the seat of the chair and his front feet on the back of it, and make these weird whiny growly noises that he never makes any other time.
I just know he's saying "I am Auggie, Slayer of Squirrels. Or at least Barker at Squirrels. If Mom would only let me out, I'd... well, I don't know, I've never caught one. But I'd sure do something!"
Ki, my genius dog (half cocker spaniel, half border collie) loves to howl with us, but won’t start it, since that is reserved for the top dog (me.) But he sure lets us know when he needs a howl - he puts his muzzle in the air, as if howling, without saying anything.
He asks to go out by gently tapping with his paw on the glass. If no one responds, he woofs once. He also has his “I’m so hungry I can’t walk a step further” look perfected during walks to get his treat. Beyond that, we trained him not to go after cats on his walks. When we pass one, and he’s good, which is usually the case, he looks up at me to tell me he was good and deserves a treat.
And another. When he was younger, we taught him to sit at the corner before crossing the street, which we did only at intersections. He quickly learned that if he wanted to cross at the middle of the block, in order to smell a nice sewer, he should sit at the curb. He got his message across immediately.
If I am digressing from the path this thread is meant to follow, I apologize. If you are not already aware of this product, you may find it interesting(?)
Marketed as a toy, but apparently this technology works. I’m still skeptical, but I read that, (quote), “On his trip to the former Soviet Union in early 2003, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi presented Russian President Vladimir Putin two prototypes of the English version of BowLingual, one for each of his dogs (Tosca, a standard Poodle, and Connie, a Labrador Retriever.)”
Maxx is the elegant tuxedo who translates for the girls. He understands tools. If one hides from him in the same room with a mirror, he’ll use the mirror to look for said person first. He says OWWWWuuuttt (out) when he thinks he should go out. If one of “his” people is ill, he will give them a throrough “CAT” scan. Actually, several, & several times a day, until healthy, in his estimation. Maxx is also a watch cat. If a stranger comes into the house without one of “his” people, he will growl and fluff up to protect the home fires. He will also go out to find one or both of the girls when told to do so.
The girls are prettier than they are smart. Not to say they don’t have they’re ways. Cassy (Mama Cass) does the “Rub my tummy flop” described earlier. She does it on the bed between us. If someone doesn’t take the hint, she’ll grab a hand and place it on her tummy.
Lil thinks she speaks English. She will “talk” to me very ernestly, holding eye contact and get louder if it seems I’m not understanding. “SENORA, WHERE IS MY TUNA?”
Annie tells us when the food bowls are running dangerously low. Any trip to the kitchen is an opportunity to walk between the bowls and the cupboard where the food is stored, looking up at me and meowing for more. Of course, she’s not above cadging a cat treat to tide her over either.
Denver is normally quiet, unless he wants a body rub. Then, he looks up and makes a noise that sounds something like a 1970s funk guitar riff. (“Wah! Wah!”) If he gets his rub, he’ll turn on the turbo purr.
Shiloh never meows; she just meeps. And usually, when she meeps, she’s unhappy about something. So when you hear a meep, it means that one of the others is bothering her, or she doesn’t want you (or anybody else) to touch her right now. The trick is to figure out what it is, and stop it somehow. Then she goes back to being quiet again.
Fiona meows a lot, for no apparent reason. Meow. Are you still here? What are you going to do next? Where’s my toy; have you seen it? Is that a dog outside? What’s the score in the game?
Pick one; they all seem to be equally valid for all situations in which she meows. But when she wants some attention, she jumps in my lap and head-butts my chin.
I just let one of my dogs in from outside. I shut and locked the door that goes to basement and back door. She then proceeds to stand at the computer desk whining (her idea of bitching) at me because she wants down in the basement. She isn’t allowed down there because she thinks the rules are different there. She thinks anything down there is fair game to be taken and chewed.
I know what she wants and she isn’t going to get it.
My roomate swears her and her sister (Siberian Huskies) have a vocabulary. I really didn’t believe it until a couple of days ago when I definitely heard Red Baroness say “pop”, while she was begging for a drink from my roomie. Now I’m beginning to wonder…
