by Connie Cronley
A young woman walks her dog Simon by my house regularly. We wave, sometimes call out “Hi.”
One day recently, I was hungry for conversation, so I was waiting by my garden gate as she walked by and asked, “Have you ever thought about the effects the French Revolution had on the United States?”
“What?”
I began to explain some influence on Americans from the social upheaval of the late 1700s. Sadly, she and Simon were on a schedule and moved away quickly.
“Nobody talks anymore,” I grumbled to Zeke when I was back inside.
“Eh,” he answered.
Zeke is my nine-year-old springer spaniel, and I always have conversations with him. Especially since COVID, I have talked to my pets more than to people. Zeke was originally Jay Cronley’s dog. Raised from puppydom by Jay, naturally Zeke is well read, articulate, and opinionated, with a wicked wit.
As this morning’s nonexchange demonstrates, pets are more attentive than people. I’m sure Zeke knows all about the French Revolution, but I continued.
“We can track partisan politics in this country directly to the French Revolution.”
Zeke growled. He’s right, of course. We’re all growling at partisan politics.
Anybody who has a pet knows that they understand human words and phrases. Whether or not they choose to acknowledge them is another thing. I have shared my home with many cats that let me know how well they understood English.
Once when I was trying to wrap a gift, my cat Abigail kept playing with the ribbon until I lost my patience and snapped at her, “Abigail! Stop that!” She had just turned and was walking away. She stopped, turned, walked back, and slapped me. How dare I speak to her in that way!
Conversing with Our Pets
According to online research, 55 percent of pet owners think their pets understand them better than people do. In Oklahoma, 86 percent of people with pets talk to them. In Montana, only 45 percent talk to their pets. Nevada pet owners are the most talkative at 95 percent.
An article in Psychology Today says we tend to talk to pets the same way we do to infants and small children, a sort of baby talk. Pet talk is similar (higher pitch, repetitive and exaggerated emotion) but lacks the exaggerated, drawn-out vowels we use for babies.
Not Zeke and me. I speak to him respectfully. I say, “I’ll be right back” when I leave the room and “Excuse me” when I dislodge him for cleaning. I do address him with lots of “pet names,” special terms of endearment known as hypocorism, and he responds to all of them. (He also responds to the crinkle of a treat bag.)
The same Psychology Today article cited a study that proved cats can distinguish between speech directed at them instead of to another human, but only if the speaker is the cat owner.
Talking to pets raises lots of questions. Do we talk to them the way we wish people talked to us? Do they understand? Do they answer?
I read in the Wall Street Journal that in times of personal crisis, actress Christina Ricci talks to the birds outside in her garden and begs them for help. In Sigrid Nunez’ award-winning book The Friend, the narrator reads to a Great Dane named Apollo who is grieving the loss of his owner. She tries to comfort him with music, but that doesn’t work. She reads to him from her own writing, but that bores him. (I can say from experience this is demoralizing.) Apollo is soothed when she reads aloud from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet.
I took a quick survey of friends who talk to their pets and asked what they say:
Pam tells her horse Charlie what a handsome boy he is.
Curtis tells his cats Victoria and Betty over and over that he loves them and praises Penny for being so soothing.
Strengthening the Bond
It’s good for us to talk to our pets, according to research. It reduces our stress, makes the pet feel valued, and strengthens the bond between us. However, we should always speak in a happy tone, even if we’re blue, and that will elevate our mood.
Studies show that cats can understand only 20 to 40 words, but the average trained dog understands about 165 words, equivalent to a human toddler. Highly trained dogs with the military, police forces, or search-and-rescue work have a vocabulary 1.5 times larger. Border collies, German shepherds, and poodles can understand 1,000 words or more. Those breeds were described as the cream of the canine crop and supersmart.
Oh, yeah? Zeke just turned to me and said, “Don’t forget the Louisiana Purchase. That’s a result of the French Revolution.”
