Dogtalk

[stoutfellow]

This post wants to go in two or three different directions. Part of me wants to talk about it like a linguist (and there are two different ways to go with that); part wants to philosophize a little; and part just wants to tell anecdotes about Murphy.

Okay. English has quite a number of words describing the different sounds that dogs make: bark, growl, whine, whimper, yelp, bay, bell, snarl... Unfortunately, I'm finding them inadequate, both for identifying the sounds and for interpreting them. Here are a couple of examples.

You know how, sometimes, a kid will try to get the attention of a parent, who is preoccupied with something else? "Daddy... daddy... daddy..." et cetera ad infinitum? Murphy does something like that. If I had to assign it one of the usual words, I'd have to call it a whine, but that's not it. It's a voiceless expulsion of air through the nose: "Whuff... whuff... whuff...". He'll keep it up until I stop what I'm doing and follow him to whatever he's concerned with. (Usually it's the box of treats.) What's the appropriate word? "Whuff" won't do it (even though that's what it sounds like); a "whuff", to me, is a gruff and premonitory bark.

There's another sound I've just noticed recently; it's sort of a bark, but it's a clear, loud, and patient tone: "Some help here, please!" It's the sound he made when he got hung up on the doggy door, and he made it again a little while ago. [Remembering the previous event, I hurried out to the garage. He was standing near the low table, just outside the door into the house; evidently he was having trouble jumping up. I stepped down into the garage and stooped to pick him up (which he hates), but he gathered himself for another try. He didn't make it; his hindlegs missed the table, but I caught his hips and gave him a hoist almost before they hit, and he scrambled into the house.]

Are there people who study canine vocalizations, and do they have a technical vocabulary? (Of course hunters and such have their own words, but that, I think, is more oriented to the task than to understanding behavior.)

I realize that there's a lot of anthropomorphizing in the above. I can't help it; I have to interpret Murphy's desires and intentions (if that word is even appropriate) in human terms, because that's all I have to interpret with. There may be meat for another post there later.

Comments

[neonnurse.livejournal.com]

I only have empirical evidence, but I think dogs try to replicate sounds from human speech sometimes (when they are very smart dogs). Cowboy snorts and sneezes to add emphasis when he is trying to get us to do something. And we had a brilliant but insane Afghan once who would scold us. She learned to bark a recognizable version of the word "Bad!", which included a close approximation of the tone we used when we said it.

So anyway, maybe snort is what you are looking for?

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

There's If Dogs Could Talk (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0865477299/sr=8-1/qid=1142402704/ref=sr_1_1/002-4809441-8172806?%5Fencoding=UTF8) by canine ethologist Vilmos Csányi and How to Speak Dog (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/074320297X/qid=1142402972/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-4809441-8172806?s=books&v=glance&n=283155) by Coren, which look interesting.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Added to my list.