Chris' Christian Blog

Tallking Animals

"Tallking Animals" 

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The Blog City Prompt Forum prompt for January 9, 2017 says “An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language.” (Martin Buber)

"What do you think about the expressiveness of an animal’s eyes, and did you ever have an animal companion whose eyes almost talked to you?"

My answer to that question is a resounding YES! I've had several dogs throughout my life and also worked in a humane society shelter where there were at least one hundred dogs on any given day. You could tell by the dogs body language that they were literally communicating with you. There was no "almost talking" to it. They were talking, just not by voice. They told you when they were happy. They greeted you when you came in by barking of course. You haven't heard loud until you've heard over 120 dogs barking at the same time! They told you all sorts of things by their eyes and nuances in their behavior.

Yes I definitely believe dogs can communicate. My ex-wife and I had a little dog named Boo. She got sick sick and died on us. However I was suffering from non-diagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at the time. If somebody walked up behind me without announcing themselves I was likely to respond violently. Boo was small but she was courageous or simply knew I'd never hurt her. If I did flashback and start swinging she would growl and tug at my pants leg until I quit, which was usually pretty quickly. She helped control my knee-jerk reactions though.

My late wife Susan, who was a member here called "little girl" after the nickname her dad gave her when she was young, had a Pomeranian named Sandy. Sandy would almost literally talk to me. If I got angry over anything she was rubbing against my legs or coming between me and whomever I was arguing with. She'd look at me with eyes that would cool the hottest temper and leave you standing with your head hanging down. She was incredibly intelligent. Those eyes she gave you sometimes very clearly stated : "I know you can do better. Now straighten up and fly right!"

Can anybody say "GUILT TRIP?

There were many other things Sandy would say with her eyes. She told you when she needed to go out, when she was hungry, and other things. The funniest of all was that she knew long before I did that I was having a bi-polar episode. She would follow me everywhere, lavish me with attention, sleep with her head on my shoulder as I slept, and just generally act strange. When she did that I started showing early symptoms within a few days, which I knew well enough to head it off at the pass. She was super intelligent.

However she got out one day and never came back. The humane society had caught her. For some reason they couldn't trace her tag. We called and they had her. According to them we didn't meet their criteria to get her back. Our income wasn't high enough.

I'm getting a service dog soon. I'm looking forward to that. My service dog is trained to carry out 30 different commands and I have to train it to do even more. So yes, they are very intelligent and do talk if you know how to hear them.