calgarygirl
11-17-2005, 10:55 AM
LIFE WITH NEWMAN – DO YA HEAR?
I think we are all familiar with "selective hearing" in our lives. That's the condition whereby you only hear the things that you really want to hear and you can filter out the rest as easily as PhotoShopping your ex out of all your wedding pictures. I know I had selective hearing when I was a teenager. My mom would say that curfew was at ELEVEN and I would hear that curfew was at exactly eleven minutes past 1:00 a.m. My beloved, Dave, has selective hearing. I'll say "Honey, let's not fool ourselves, there are too many of your dirty clothes lying around all over this house!" But he will only hear "Honey, let's fool around all over this house". Not only is that selective hearing, but it's also extremely optimistic, bordering on delusional. Newman is the poster child for selective hearing and, simultaneously, he has mastered the look of innocence only found in virgins and Robert Blake. Thus, the following are examples of Newman performing his loose interpretation of listening.
When I say "Newman, get off the bed" he hears "Newman, why don't you stretch out a bit further so that your tail brushes the headboard and your nose is hanging over my hope chest at the foot of the bed? As well, why don't you take our pillows and the 13 decorative throw pillows and scrunch them up into a mountain and then plunk yourself down in the middle of them while making the sound of a bear relaxing in cool mud?" When I add the words "right now" to my initial command, Newman hears "completely at your leisure, m'lord, or whenever the sun and moon stop revolving around you." Newman has a lovely fleece-covered, circular, foam-filled dog bed on the floor beside Dave, which is covered by a soft fleecy blanket, but when I say "Newman, go lie on your bed", he immediately clambers onto my side of our king-sized Sealy Posturpedic.
When I say "Newman, get in the car" he hears "Newman, after you have snorfled around the lawn, pee'd on the bushes, chased a magpie into the backyard, said hello to Emma across the street, found an old tennis ball, taken a drink from the hose, saved the universe from a blowing piece of plastic, rolled on your back in the grass, given the mailman a wet nose print in his crotch, embarrassed the City of Calgary enumeration lady with your overactive hormones and exiled the gophers from the empty lot across the street, I want you to get in the car".
When I say "Newman, come", he hears "Newman, come to within about 15 feet of me. Stop and see whether I have a treat or whether I'm asking you to 'come' because you're in trouble." When I say "Newman, come all the way here" he hears "Newman, take about five more steps closer to me and hang your head with uncertainty. Try to determine if I just want to scratch your ears or whether I found the remnants of my DKNY belt under the fridge."
When I say, "Newman, do you want to go to the park?" he hears "Newman, start barking insanely so that they can hear you in Manitoba!!! Spin in circles really, really fast and start howling like Kim Cattrall in Porky's!!!!!! Then jump up and down like a cheerleader and scratch the paint off the back door!!! Do it loudly, do it wildly and do it every single day as if you've never been to the park in your entire three years of living!!!"
When I say "Newman, sit" he hears "Newman, for about one-eighth of a milli-second plunk your butt on the floor and then spring back up as though the hardwood was on fire. She didn't differentiate between 'Newman, sit for as long as it takes to inhale a Turkey Bite' or 'Newman, sit for the duration of 'Stairway to Heaven'. She said 'Newman, sit', which is wholly open for interpretation and analysis." My canine is very command specific and can look incredulous when I scold him for giving half-hearted attempts at everything he learned in class at "Sit Happens".
When I say "Newman, drop" he hears "Newman, drop, but hover protectively over whatever you just dropped. When I take a step closer to you, pick the item up again and back away from me. When I say 'drop' again, turn and look behind you just to ensure that it is still you that I'm talking to. If I have to say 'drop' three times in a row, you can bet that you are also going to hear some colourful language regarding your heritage and how brilliant Afghans are looking to me right now".
This selective hearing also applies to noises heard around the house. It is ludicrous the lengths I will go to to try and deceive the dog. After donning flannel slippers, turning on the radio and holding my breath, I will covertly start tippy-toeing in the direction of the fridge. Veiled under the pretense of a bogus cough, I tentatively open the door and noiselessly pull open the drawer concealing all the dairy products. I delicately procure the Cracker Barrel medium cheddar cheese in my hand and furtively begin to peel the plastic wrap away from the corner……whereupon I am bowled over by 72 pounds of chocolate lab and I find myself staring into the snout of an animal who, if he was in my pocket, would NOT hear me say "Newman, it's time for a bath."
The only time Newman's hearing is perfect is when I say "Newman, you are an absolute menace in this house and you cause me hours of frustration with your shedding, your quasi-controllable bladder, your overly sensitive stomach and your ability to find mud in a sandstorm. You are a remedial obedience student at best and you could use a package of Tic-Tacs and a Pine Tree Air Freshener tied around your tail. You're stubborn, incorrigible, hopeless and a textbook example of why people adopt cats" and he hears "Newman, I love you".
Dee Clair
Calgary, Alberta
I think we are all familiar with "selective hearing" in our lives. That's the condition whereby you only hear the things that you really want to hear and you can filter out the rest as easily as PhotoShopping your ex out of all your wedding pictures. I know I had selective hearing when I was a teenager. My mom would say that curfew was at ELEVEN and I would hear that curfew was at exactly eleven minutes past 1:00 a.m. My beloved, Dave, has selective hearing. I'll say "Honey, let's not fool ourselves, there are too many of your dirty clothes lying around all over this house!" But he will only hear "Honey, let's fool around all over this house". Not only is that selective hearing, but it's also extremely optimistic, bordering on delusional. Newman is the poster child for selective hearing and, simultaneously, he has mastered the look of innocence only found in virgins and Robert Blake. Thus, the following are examples of Newman performing his loose interpretation of listening.
When I say "Newman, get off the bed" he hears "Newman, why don't you stretch out a bit further so that your tail brushes the headboard and your nose is hanging over my hope chest at the foot of the bed? As well, why don't you take our pillows and the 13 decorative throw pillows and scrunch them up into a mountain and then plunk yourself down in the middle of them while making the sound of a bear relaxing in cool mud?" When I add the words "right now" to my initial command, Newman hears "completely at your leisure, m'lord, or whenever the sun and moon stop revolving around you." Newman has a lovely fleece-covered, circular, foam-filled dog bed on the floor beside Dave, which is covered by a soft fleecy blanket, but when I say "Newman, go lie on your bed", he immediately clambers onto my side of our king-sized Sealy Posturpedic.
When I say "Newman, get in the car" he hears "Newman, after you have snorfled around the lawn, pee'd on the bushes, chased a magpie into the backyard, said hello to Emma across the street, found an old tennis ball, taken a drink from the hose, saved the universe from a blowing piece of plastic, rolled on your back in the grass, given the mailman a wet nose print in his crotch, embarrassed the City of Calgary enumeration lady with your overactive hormones and exiled the gophers from the empty lot across the street, I want you to get in the car".
When I say "Newman, come", he hears "Newman, come to within about 15 feet of me. Stop and see whether I have a treat or whether I'm asking you to 'come' because you're in trouble." When I say "Newman, come all the way here" he hears "Newman, take about five more steps closer to me and hang your head with uncertainty. Try to determine if I just want to scratch your ears or whether I found the remnants of my DKNY belt under the fridge."
When I say, "Newman, do you want to go to the park?" he hears "Newman, start barking insanely so that they can hear you in Manitoba!!! Spin in circles really, really fast and start howling like Kim Cattrall in Porky's!!!!!! Then jump up and down like a cheerleader and scratch the paint off the back door!!! Do it loudly, do it wildly and do it every single day as if you've never been to the park in your entire three years of living!!!"
When I say "Newman, sit" he hears "Newman, for about one-eighth of a milli-second plunk your butt on the floor and then spring back up as though the hardwood was on fire. She didn't differentiate between 'Newman, sit for as long as it takes to inhale a Turkey Bite' or 'Newman, sit for the duration of 'Stairway to Heaven'. She said 'Newman, sit', which is wholly open for interpretation and analysis." My canine is very command specific and can look incredulous when I scold him for giving half-hearted attempts at everything he learned in class at "Sit Happens".
When I say "Newman, drop" he hears "Newman, drop, but hover protectively over whatever you just dropped. When I take a step closer to you, pick the item up again and back away from me. When I say 'drop' again, turn and look behind you just to ensure that it is still you that I'm talking to. If I have to say 'drop' three times in a row, you can bet that you are also going to hear some colourful language regarding your heritage and how brilliant Afghans are looking to me right now".
This selective hearing also applies to noises heard around the house. It is ludicrous the lengths I will go to to try and deceive the dog. After donning flannel slippers, turning on the radio and holding my breath, I will covertly start tippy-toeing in the direction of the fridge. Veiled under the pretense of a bogus cough, I tentatively open the door and noiselessly pull open the drawer concealing all the dairy products. I delicately procure the Cracker Barrel medium cheddar cheese in my hand and furtively begin to peel the plastic wrap away from the corner……whereupon I am bowled over by 72 pounds of chocolate lab and I find myself staring into the snout of an animal who, if he was in my pocket, would NOT hear me say "Newman, it's time for a bath."
The only time Newman's hearing is perfect is when I say "Newman, you are an absolute menace in this house and you cause me hours of frustration with your shedding, your quasi-controllable bladder, your overly sensitive stomach and your ability to find mud in a sandstorm. You are a remedial obedience student at best and you could use a package of Tic-Tacs and a Pine Tree Air Freshener tied around your tail. You're stubborn, incorrigible, hopeless and a textbook example of why people adopt cats" and he hears "Newman, I love you".
Dee Clair
Calgary, Alberta