I dunno, it depends what it says to you. My elderly cat who has trouble getting enough food down just said, “feed me”, and i gave her a spoonful of cat food. (And then stood between her and the healthy young cat who also wanted to eat the food.) I don’t think that makes me the son of Sam.
I mean, pets are very chatty, but what they say tends to be pretty simple and mundane. “Feed me”, “make room for me in your lap”. “Pet me here” “stop that”.
Which is exactly how I communicate.
I say few words out loud. But “food” comes out easily. If I can’t “say” it I can sign it. Or just eat the food.
I have those thumbs, makes it easy to open a can or package. Or make a sandwich.
Animals? Not so much.
If we wanna keep these pets we have to kinda read their minds, follow instructions from someone better informed, or watch their cues.
If you think about actual communication between different species and between persons, there are many things at play. Listening, seeing, signaling and with humans, of course speech. Can you trust every word a human says? Nope. Body language may unconsciously tell you, no that’s not true, no matter what you say.
I can say this with authority, my dogs or my cats have never lied to me.
Bear, the Evil Siamese monster thinks he’s fooling me. But I’m on to him.
Hey, my cordless drill’s feelings are hurt, and you need to apologize - its’ favourite flowers are Helianthus neglectus
Really, in my experience they lie all the time. “I was not fed breakfast”, “I’ve not had a walk”, “there is something important to see outside” (so I can steal your spot on the couch when you get up).
I have very personal, intimate relationship with my CGM.
It’s stuck on me. Or am I stuck to it?
I talk to it, I check it regularly and inquire about its health and well being.
I protect it from harm. Get annoyed at it. I swear sometimes it’s got it in for me. Could kill me easily.
And, yes it has lied to me. More times than I can count.
Yet I allow to hang around
.
Am I at the cusp of humanity relying on artificial devices, implanted. Ones we’re expected to live with, or else we’d die?
I’ll take a size 3 kidney device and just a small pancreas device. (my melon is fine, we will not be implanting artificial brains today) I’m not greedy. TY.
I don’t call that lying. I call that being smart ass.
Mine have.
They don’t lie about relationships, though. They lie about things such as whether there’s somebody at the door, so I’ll open it.
I talk to everybody from the cats to the tractor. If any of them start answering me in English, I’ll get my perceptions checked. (Though I knew a dog once who said “water” when she wanted some. She couldn’t pronounce it right, but she came pretty close.)
I leave the tractor alone in the barn for weeks in the winter. I don’t worry that it’s lonely.
Agreed.
Listening to your dog when it talks and doing what it says is perfectly wise behavior. You’ll get plenty of rest, fresh air, exercise, and good food. More people should listen to their pets.
David Berkowitz lied about Sam the dog.
In the Movies You’ve Seen Recently thread in Cafe Society, some folks criticized Mel Brooks’ History of the World Part 1 for having racist and misogynist scenes. Wolfpup then drops this steaming turd, straight from the culture of the 20th century:
“In my view, Mel Brooks is an irreverent comedic genius. Yeah, I get that some of the scenes can be interpreted as misogyny, but it’s comedy, people! None of those things happened, none of those things are being advocated for. It’s just a comedy. Sometimes you just need to laugh at life.”
Okay, I know it’s a little weird to go back a month, but this bit really stuck in my craw. In a thread about nonalcoholic beer and spirits, digs got a doctor’s order to stay away from alcohol and wanted suggestions. Wolfpup’s response to the medical advice?
My solution to alcohol-free liquor that lacks “bite” is to consume proper liquor that does have alcohol in it. Seriously, just do it in moderation, unless you have liver disease. The doctor who tells you to avoid all alcohol is likely to then go off for a nice dinner accompanied by a fine bottle of Cabernet. It’s all about lifestyle balance. I may expire before this board does, and it may be due to alcohol, but I want it to be said that “he left with a smile on his face”.
What incredibly bad form.
Jesus fucking Christ.
He’s definitely admitted to being an uncontrolled unrepentant alcoholic in other posts. He’s happily pickling himself and seems to see nothing wrong w proposing that solution for others.
Sad to watch. Not a lot we can do from our keyboards.
Wolfpup admitted to being an alcoholic? Not just a heavy drinker? I missed that.
Maybe that’s me issuing a remote diagnosis.
His comments about his drinking have been frank, and to this particular internet busybody, very concerning.
No, just a fan of Caesars, wine with dinner, and the occasional rum.
I’m using this as a reference point for a general reply – it’s not specifically directed at you, one of my favourite posters.
Much of what I’ve written from time to time about drinking was hyperbole and said in fun. The serious part that I really believe is about moderation and lifestyle balance. The bit that was quoted upthread was decidedly not advice to digs, as should have been clear from the first sentence. In retrospect I probably shouldn’t have said anything at all, but the post was a sort of backlash against the kind of advice we often get from physicians, who are notoriously conservative in their recommendations about diet, alcohol, and the medications they prescribe. The humourist Stephen Leacock once wrote about a doctor who advised patients to avoid fatty or high-calorie foods and abstain from all alcohol, and then went out and stuffed himself with a rich dinner until he bubbled, along with a vat of wine.
You alluded to this yourself in that thread:
My quarterly well-baby visit w PCP is a week-plus from now. I can hear her now: “Quit drinking, lose weight, exercise more. Fewer carbs too.”
Sigh.
I’m quite unwilling to find an actual gerontologist. Some news I’m just unwilling to hear.
That’s the sort of thing I mean, and that Leacock meant, too.
You also said in that thread:
Like the OP I now find my doc recommending I quit just about all alcohol. That doesn’t make me real happy.
I get that, too. My gastroenterologist and hepatologist told me that the maximum amount of alcohol I should be consuming is two drinks a week. This is just on general principle, pending the results of tests that may indicate no alcohol at all. This means that if I routinely have two glasses of wine with dinner and absolutely no other alcohol at all, that alone is seven times the amount of alcohol that the medical profession recommends. This is the kind of thing that makes me sad, and that prompted that post.
Though I have no idea what @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness thought he was accomplishing by bringing it up again more than a month later, other than I guess emphasizing that I’m guilty not only of enjoying much of the comedy of Mel Brooks, but also of having wine with dinner.
Other than it being my PCP, I’ve been given the same advice and am equally saddened.
I’m also glad to hear there’s a big dose of hyperbole served w those beloved Caesars we keep reading about.
Yeah, i don’t think that’s true at all. I had an overweight doctor, and she never once mentioned my weight. I now see a slender doctor, and he recommends i lose weight every year. I think doctors are far less likely to make recommendations that they, themselves, wouldn’t follow.
Also, if you are drinking seven times as much as your doctor recommends, you might, ya know, want to cut back a bit. Some of those diseases of excess cause unpleasant symptoms.
Yeah, it was kinda an assholish comment in a thread for digs.
This is the same poster who often insists that they are a literal dog, I think some degree of hyperbole is to be expected 
So he should stick to threads for dogs instead?
/D&R