How to Teach Your Dog to Talk
The wizard was sitting in his big leather chair, so I hopped into his lap and wedged myself into the space alongside his leg and closed my eyes for a nap.
I have been doing this since I was a puppy.
I was almost asleep when I heard the footsteps of Fontaine on the stairs. The smell of his aftershave puffed more strongly from the stairwell with every 5 steps he took.
Brut, by Fabergé.
Brut, by Fabergé.
Brut, by Fabergé.
And then he was in the room.
I never speak when Fontaine is near because Fontaine does not know that some dogs can talk. Technically, all dogs can talk, it’s just that most dogs don’t realize they can.
Humans learn to talk little by little, but dogs learn to talk all at once. Like every other type of magic, it happens in a twinkling. The necessary ingredients are a 6-year-old child, a 6-month-old dog, and a Mickey Mouse cartoon. When these three come together, fairy dust fills the air. And if, before it dissipates, the 6-month-old dog is standing up on two legs when Goofy appears onscreen and talks, the young dog will immediately be able to talk.
Dog psychologists (all of which are human, by the way,) attribute this phenomenon to role model identification. They say a young dog standing on two legs will identify with Goofy because he also stands on two legs. So when Goofy talks, the young dog doesn’t overthink it; he just starts talking right away. But if non-talking quadruped Pluto appears, the young dog will never realize he can talk.
This tidy little “role model” theory of dog psychologists is complete crap, by the way, but I don’t blame the psychologists. The smell and sound of fairy dust are beyond the range of human senses.
Fontaine cleared his throat. The wizard looked up. Fontaine said, “I want to speak to you about the rabbit hole.”
The wizard looked back down at his reading. “If it is about the rabbit hole, you will need to speak with Indy.”
“But that is the very problem,” roared Fontaine. “You have created a fairy tale about a talking dog and his anthropomorphic friends and it is making you look like a child! You are supposed to be a man of business.”
The wizard closed his book and looked at Fontaine with deep sadness. “Do you not believe in fairy tales?”
Fontaine responded with heat. “Do you believe we should be teaching children that dragons exist?”
The wizard spoke calmy. “Fairy tales do not teach children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales teach children that dragons can be killed.” 1 As the wizard looked down and reopened his book, he said, “But again, you should be talking to Indy, not to me.”
When Fontaine looked at the book in the wizard’s lap, he sighed a deep sigh and shook his head in disbelief. “You are reading a book of fairy tales.”
As Fontaine was walking away, the wizard said, “When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. But now I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” 2
Without turning around, Fontaine made a dismissive gesture with his right hand and just kept walking.
I leaped from the chair and roared, “Fontaine!”
He spun around.
I smiled. “You said you wanted to speak with me?”
Indy Beagle
1 G.K. Chesterton
2 C.S. Lewis