Conversation With a Pea

Trey Smith

We all know that other creatures -- particularly dogs -- don't comprehend human speech. They may react to voice inflections or be trained to respond to specific commands, but that's about it.

Or is it?

On Friday morning, I was mixing up my daily berry smoothie. A part of this daily routine is that Jazz, the big dog, gets to lick the remnants of yogurt off the back of the lid and, Lilly, our hairless dachshund, gets to lick out the yogurt container itself. Lily (who I also call Pea because she's as cute as a pea in the pod) LOVES this daily ritual.

As usual, Jazz sat down right next to me awaiting her customary lick of the yogurt lid. When it came time to present the yogurt container to Lily's salivating tongue, she was nowhere to be seen. So, I called her. No response. I called again. Still no response. I called a third time and no Lily.

I looked directly at Jazz and muttering to myself said, "Lily, I'm going to call you one more time. If you don't appear, then Jazz gets the yogurt container." Upon finishing my muttering, I saw Lily poke up her head from under a blanket on my recliner. She stared at me with bugged out eyes. All I said to her was "Well?" and she jumped down from the chair and ran gleefully into the kitchen to receive the yogurt container.

I readily will grant that she may have been asleep and she simply was able to awaken herself at the time of my muttering. It may well be nothing more than that. But it does cause a person to wonder: Do animals sometime understand us humans far more than we realize?

It is not a question I have an answer for...but I AM open to the possibility!