I speak dog

and you can too

I have been very open about my struggles in the mental health realm, and I’ll just tell you it takes a lot of courage to do that. There are times I cringe when I hit “send,” not knowing what kind of reaction I will get in the emails.

But today I am going to be maybe the most vulnerable I’ve ever been in this space and make a brutally honest confession. 

I am a dog-talker. 

I don’t mean that I just talk to my dog, which I do all the time and probably a lot of other people do too.

I mean, I talk for my dog. I narrate his thoughts. Out loud. In his voice.

Now before you get all judgey with me, let me just tell you this is not my fault. It is 100% an inherited trait, as much as my brown hair and green eyes and bunions. I know this to be a fact because literally everyone in my family does it: parents, siblings, grandparents, even my cousins.

And it’s not just dogs. I remember my grandmother standing near the window that looked out over the pond on her farm, speaking for the pair of wild ducks she named Mary Jane and Patrick Henry, who came back every year to raise a new brood of babies. She had whole conversations for them surrounding the suitability of this pond over the one down the road, the unbearable heat of a July day, and whether or not the farmer was spilling a little cracked corn on purpose. I’m betting my grandfather used to talk for his cows, and I have also done this a few times though the voices are harder to manage.

Please don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. If you are an animal lover, you’ve done it too.

My grandfather loved collies, and when I was a child he had one named Prince. We have a few old photos of Prince, who I remember as being 200 pounds of fur, but who, in reality, was probably only 70. He was a beautiful dog and very sweet and we all loved him, but my grandfather and this dog had a special bond. Pop-pop would make a specific noise and Prince would throw his head back and moan, like they were singing together.

My brother, who is among the most intelligent humans I know, also can make his dachshund, Moonpie, sing. Brother crouches down on the floor and begins to whine quietly, gradually increasing in volume and intensity, and Moonpie conjures up his inner wolf and answers the call of his ancestors.

Then my grandfather had a mutt named John Dog. Not John, who was my cousin, but John Dog, so we wouldn’t confuse them. In the beginning he was John Puppy, but he outgrew that pretty quickly and John Dog stuck. 

I remember my grandfather taking John Dog’s bowl of food out to him in the evening. John Dog would see him coming and start dancing around, tail wagging furiously. Then the narration would start: “Oh, he’s a good dog! He says, ‘I’m so hungry I could eat a bear! It’s about time you got out here with my food!’ He says, ‘I’d like a hot dog,’ he says!”

And on it would go, with John Dog getting more and more excited at the sound of my grandfather’s voice.

Maybe this doesn’t sound like a big deal to you, but wait—there’s more.

In our 39 years of marriage, we have owned seven dogs. I was not particularly attached to any of the first four. Then we got Spanky, who I still say was the perfect dog. He was a pure-bred Yorkie we got for free because he was “too big” and the breeder just wanted to get rid of him. We had him when we still had a house full of kids, so, while he was mine, I had a lot of people to share him with. He was perfect because he was calm and did not shed.

When we went to pick him up with all five children plus Ben and me in the minivan, of course everyone wanted to hold him. At eight weeks old he was just three pounds of fluff and so very cute. We drove for a while, then I heard a little voice from the back seat say, “Please pass the puppy.”

Before we lost Spanky, Ben came home one day all excited about some guy at work whose American bulldog had a litter of brindle puppies and it was all we heard about until I relented and agreed to go see them. I should have known better. We came home with a ten-week-old mutt who Ben wanted to name something strong and knightly like Lancer but was overruled by the two children in the backseat who had seen The Little Rascals and named the dog Petey. You know, Spanky’s sidekick.

Eventually Spanky was gone, then all the children left home, and Pete got cancer and went over the rainbow bridge as well. We were dogless and that is a very strange feeling that is not assuaged by cows in the field. There is just something companionable and comforting about a friendly, furry face in the living room, and I’m not talking about Ben.

Somewhere in there I had my accident that sent me down the long road of . . . well, you know the story. I decided I needed a therapy dog to make me feel better. I wanted one who would curl up in my lap and minister to my anxious emotions. One who would be selflessly devoted to me in my time of need. Instead, I got Hank and his attitude.

We’ve talked about Hank before, how he is the opposite of cuddly, the antithesis of selfless. Hank is all about himself. He is the king, the alpha dog, in charge and not afraid to let you know it.

In my effort to exert some kind of control over the situation, I started talking for him, as if I could speak into him what I wanted him to be, which is loving and gentle. So I use a sweet, little-dog voice like you would hear from a cute puppy in a cartoon. Here’s how it goes:

Let’s say it’s morning and I’m just letting him out of his crate. I open the door and say, “Good morning, Hankie!” and he replies (in my sweet, little-dog voice), “Mornin, Mommy! Putties gotta go potty bad! I needa go out!”

See how it works? I say in his imagined voice what I assume he is thinking.

One of the things Hank loves is fresh vegetables. When he sees me get out the big cutting board and knife, he comes running and I start narrating. “Mommy! You got begables? Putties love raw begables! Putties want dem so bad!”

But his all-time favorite treats ever are Greenies. They’re shaped like tiny toothbrushes and are supposed to help keep his teeth clean and breath fresh. (They fail.) Hank knows which cabinet in the kitchen they are kept in, and he also knows he only gets them from Daddy.

Every few days, Ben will glance at me and I know. As he slowly walks toward the kitchen, I make a big gasp sound and Hank’s ears immediately perk up. Then I start excitedly: “Daddy! Are you gettin a toofbrush? Putties LOVE toofbrushes! Dere the bestest! Putties love dem so much! Oh, Putties are gettin a toofbrush!” While this is going on, Hank is jumping around, doing every trick he knows in rapid succession with no prompting. Spinning, twirling, rolling, pawing the air—it’s ridiculous.

Sometimes life is hard though, and Hank has to walk across the gravel driveway to the dirt and grass. He hates the rocky part. So I say in a sad little puppy voice, “Mommy, Putties hate dis grabel! It hurts dere wittle foots! We needa get a better dribeway!”

Now, you may be wondering why this editor and lover of grammar refers to one dog as Putties and uses a plural verb with his name. And the answer is I have no idea. That’s just how it works.

And now that you know how it’s done, you, too, can speak dog. I dare you to try it.

(Maybe do this when no one else is home.)