[Dailydrool] einstein sits shiva

[Elizabeth Lindsey]

> einstein heard hershey and immediately sat up and stared at the guy with his one eye.  he thought the guy knew where his buddy hershey was, and he was listening for a clue.  it was sad and kind of funny all at once. it demonstrated the intelligence of the basset, and that dogs have emotions,

So many people say a dog doesn't recognize actual words, only the tone of voice used to say them. So, according to them, when you ask a dog if it wants to go for a walk, its happy response isn't to the words it heard but to the way in which the words were spoken. But what Nancy wrote about Einstein proves dogs do indeed know the meaning of words and don't merely identify them by tone of voice. When Einstein heard and recognized the word "Hershey," it wasn't said in the tone of voice he was used to hearing it said in, and it was definitely out of context, being said in a place he wouldn't expect to find his friend.

Something similar happened with our late Jane Basset. She loved to chase deer but wasn't very adept at spotting them. So we'd point them out for her, aim her at them, and say in a breathless and super-excited voice, "Deer, Jane! Deer!" She'd barrel happily after them until they split up and left her in the dust. One night I had her out in the dog walk area for a long time because she was feeling constipated. I looked down at her and said in a terribly sympathetic and calm voice, "Oh, dear, Jane." Immediately her head popped up and she started scanning the tree line from her squat position, looking for deer. She recognized the word and gave it an appropriate meaning, even though I had used an entirely different tone of voice when saying it.

Reading about Einstein recognizing Hershey's name and his reaction to it was heartbreaking. I'm so sorry he's missing his friend so much.

Elizabeth