By Elliott Brack, editor and publisher | Communicating.
It’s one of mankind’s more difficult tasks.
Whether it’s one individual to another, one person to a wider audience, or even nation to nation, pitfalls crop up everywhere and often.
Today, Americans are mesmerized by two people trying to communicate, and persuade us, that their approach is the best one for our nation in the next few years. Both are having problems getting that communication to show us.
Communicating takes on different forms, not just person to person. The entire advertising business seeks to make big waves of people buy products. Sometimes that message hits the target (such as the Chick-fil-A cows), and sometimes that message is a big bust, such as Ford years ago trying to get people to buy the Edsel automobile. You can think of other successes and failures.
How about communicating with animals? Some are super-successful: think of the horse whisperer. Communicating with animals has been part of our history as humans, getting horses to go through paces using signals by the rider’s body movement and commands. Or simply a farmer trying to get a cow to stand still while being milked.
Ever think of the animals, in this case dogs, trying to communicate to us, humans? Here I’m talking about our own Hercules, the 20 pounder. Many ask: “What breed is he?” and we answer: “Best we can figure the back half is a Jack Russell.” He’s simply a mutt we latched on to about 12 years ago from the White County Animal Shelter.
He came somewhat trained He would respond to “Sit,” and was housebroken. He usually eventually returns when he is out in the yard when we call him or whistle.
We’ll admit to some problems with Herk when we look him in the eye and say “Come.”
He usually stares at us, then stands still or sits down. Oh well, communicating isn’t always easy.
But have you ever heard of a dog communicating directly with his master?
We think we see that in Hercules lately. It’s a little amazing. We didn’t try to teach it, either.
Here’s the scene. We let him go out in the yard. Sometimes he wants to sniff around a little while, and we go inside.
Lately, especially near 10 o’clock at night, he’ll stay about five minutes, then return to the door he’s let out of and bark a time or two. He seems to be saying, “Let me in,” and we get up and do. That’s amazing in itself, to us.
Now comes a new development. One of us lets Hercules outside. On several occasions, I have been in our basement reading. My wife is busy upstairs, directly above me. This is on the opposite end of the house where we let Herk out.
Suddenly there’s an unexpected bark outside the basement, from Hercules. It appears Herk is saying: “Hey, here I am, at the basement door. Let me in.”
You see why I say he’s communicating with me. It’s something new, only taking place in the last few months. Yes, I know, it’s hard to believe. But he wants to come in, and we can’t hear him barking at the other side of the house, so he goes to where we are, and signals to us.
Is that communicating or not?
(Editor’s note: Do your animals communicate with you? Briefly, tell us how. –eeb)
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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