Moo Baa La La La

I started with the title of one of my favorite kids’ books about animals, but this is not about what animals say. It’s about how people talk to animals. They don’t quite think about an animal’s native language. Not the one that they speak, but the one they understand. People always talk to animals in their own language, rather than thinking about the animal. This egocentric view causes people to talk to Georgian dogs in German, in my most recent experience. Most Georgians don’t speak German. What makes someone think a dog would? The only thing saving this from really mattering is that dogs may only really understand tone of voice and not the words at all. Or it may all just be “blah blah Ginger blah blah” like in the Far Side anyway.