Multilingual veterinarians

[cjsmith]

A coworker told me that my language ability would be useful for a veterinarian, "so you can treat French-speaking animals." I thought that was hilarious. If a parrot who speaks French comes into my clinic I'll be able to tell him he's a good bird!

I should learn dog commands in Spanish, now that I think of it. We have several Spanish-speaking clients, and it's handy to be able to tell a dog to sit.

Comments

[zianuray.livejournal.com]

http://www.talkingtails.com/command.html

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ooo, that's great! Thank you!

[tattermuffin.livejournal.com]

When that news article came out a while ago about the parrot who'd been taught to say his home address so he was returned home after he got out one day, my coworker said "Wow, smart bird! He learned Japanese!" (he was joking) - made me laugh! :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I loved that story! What a great idea!

[fuzzygruf.livejournal.com]

I've seen military police use German commands with German Shepherds, but I've never seen anyone use Pig Latin with their pigs.

My own puppy is Jewish, but he's starting Spanish class on Thursday.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I've never met an Irish setter who speaks Gaelic, either. We'll just have to be creative with our own puppies. ;-)

[ladycelia.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine who lives in downtown Baltimore only speaks French to her dog. She does not want there to be any chance of confusion if she's in a situation where someone tries to distract the dog with commands.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That's kind of neat. Hard on the pet sitter or vet techs ;-), but clever and creative!

[ladycelia.livejournal.com]

Well, if he goes to the vet, she goes with him. And, you know, Dog. Not that many commands to learn.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That's true! :-) The only ones I'd want at the vet would be sit, stay, and good dog.

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

I've also known of families where the dog was taught in something other than English if there was a toddler in the house...so that the kid didnt' get confused as to who was getting the "no" or the "stop it" or whatever.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Mmm, yeah, that is another thing I hadn't thought of!

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

that cracks me up :)

[mithriltabby]

And then there are all the accents critters have. American dogs say “woof”, Chinese ones say “wu-wu”, Russian ones “gaf-gaf”, and heavens only know what confusion ensues when the American cat “purrs” at a French one expecting “ron ron”...

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I used to love finding out all the different words for animal sounds when I'd study a language. I think I once knew the equivalent of "woof" and "meow" in Japanese, even. It's neat to see how all of them, while quite different, do resemble the animal's sound in various ways.

[mithriltabby]

I believe in Japanese it’s “wan-wan” and “nya”.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Nyao, also? Wan-wan sounds very familiar. :-)

[virtualmom.livejournal.com]

I had a friend who trained her dogs using numbers only, so during competition they wouldn't get confused hearing other people issuing commands. She had the best-trained dogs--though it was the time she spent, not the words she used!

[fyellin.livejournal.com]

According to this story
http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Articles^l1681&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=Democracy
several Bay Area police dogs were trained in Israel. Their handlers have to learn the appropriate Hebrew commands.