Out for morning walkies, the dog owner says, aloud:
No.
(Very good. The dog needs to understand No, and has even at times hinted that she does so.)
And then comes:
Uh-uh. No way.
(Hmm. Well, all right: it’s said in the same tone as No, and immediately follows it. So yes, within the limits of plausibility, the dog may read into one’s tone the continued sense of disapproval, the establishment of and the insistence upon boundaries.)
But then things deteriorate, and the dog owner finds himself having said, a split-second too late:
Sophie, stop. There is not a single circumstance under which you may go down this neighbor’s driveway. You know better than that. Have I ever let you go down this driveway?
The dog stops pulling at the leash. The dog turns, looks back at the man at the other end of the leash. The dog tilts her head, quizzically.
marta says
That’s along the lines of “Porter, you know better than to steal the kiddo’s toast. You will be sick and I don’t want to clean it up. Now, if you learn to clean up your messes, be my guest.”
Love that head tilt.
Kate Lord Brown says
Ha! The hound looks a me like that constantly. Then again so do the children.
John says
marta: To put this in a positive light, I guess we could say we assume high intelligence in our audience. Literacy, too. I mean, we’re using freaking complex sentence structures here, like with multiple clauses and everything.
I don’t know which is worse, though — being treated to a head tilt because the audience didn’t “get it,” or receiving one because the audience did.
Kate: Just keep telling yourself that as long as no adult humans look at you that way*, you’ve nothing to worry about.
______________
* Er, they don’t, do they?
marta says
My students look at me like often.
marta says
That was supposed to be–at me like that…
damn my attention!
cynth says
It’s only slightly worse when the dog makes a sort of half squeek noise that lilts up, whilst tilting their head. Because the noise indicates, “you mean me?” Very disconcerting…
John says
cynth: Now THAT is an expressive animal. Next you’ll tell us he roam(s/ed) your house with his brow furrowed. (Not that this would be surprising in a human in the same house.)