i can talk to the animals

You know, the first feature film I ever saw was the Rex Harrison Doctor Dolittle, which plainly dates me... no it doesn't I could have seen it yesterday and be one week old. Anyway, I enjoyed some of the books, too (I can't remember anything about the film except a giant snail shell, which I may have made up) and I always liked the idea of a pushmi-pullyu, perhaps because I knew it would never have to go to the toilet. Which is fine as long as it didn't need to.

But what I was really thinking about was the fact that I can talk to animals, just like Doctor Dolittle. I really can! I wonder what they think it's about. Of course there's that funny Gary Larson cartoon where the dog can only hear its name, I think dogs are a little more sensitive to intonation etc than that, but what do they think is going on? Do they think it's communication they can't understand, like I would if someone talked to me in friesian, or do they just think I'm chattering away meaningless, like I would if a monkey or a dog made noises to me? I suppose it doesn't matter and there's no way of knowing.

I just talk to those animals all the time. When I am walking the dogs I say nonsense to them, using intonation (it would be mildly embarrassing if someone overheard me, though it's not like I'm saying anything private... just saying things without thinking about them, so actually, if the dogs think I'm chattering like a monkey they wouldn't be far off the mark). I do it to the cats, too, I think a lot of the time just having something with eyes around allows me to say whatever nonsense words are in my head.

It's relevant that this is a blog posting, too, because it is pretty meaningless.