My dogs have their own voices. I don't mean the voices that they bark with, although they have those too. What I mean is they have voices generated by their personalities. We (the human people in the house) often have to speak those voices for them, but, whether the voice is coming from me or my wife, the dog's voices are distinct.

My 14 year old son told me recently that our old dog, who passed away two summers ago, sounded to him like one of those little old ladies with the raspy voice, a New York accent and leathery skin that spent her life smoking cigarette after cigarette. "So I sez to him, ‘Louie, bring me a cup'a coffee', I sez" I thought this was hilarious, because to me, she didn't sound like that at all. To me she was eternally a puppy, but to him she was an old lady when he really became aware of her as an individual.

One day we were discussing arrangements for a weekend trip. I asked my wife, "Should we take the dogs with us?" Hattie stood up, shocked. "We have a dog? Oh my God! Wait 'till Checker finds out!", and ran out of the room.

I think that the dog's voices are a product of the relationships we form with them. Some times when I'm feeling lazy I'll look at the dog and say, "Could you go get me a beer?" and the dog will say, "I would, no thumbs for the fridge." They use the thumbs excuse a lot. When I find video games spread all over the living room and say, "Who left the video games all over the living room?" The dogs just look up and Hattie says, "Hello...Thumbs?" Checker says, "What's a video game?" (She's not too bright...)

They can be pretty clever though. Today I realized they had some how rigged up a switch on the toilet seat to a light in the back yard. I know this because twice they were in the yard perfectly quiet and as soon as I sat down on the toilet they started barking like little crazy dogs. There I sat, unable to do anything. As soon as I got up though, I went out to quiet them down and found them sitting in the back yard, whistling, looking all casual.

Later I heard them talking. Checker said, "Hey, maybe we could have the light be blue when he's on the toilet and green when he's in the shower." Hattie said, "It wouldn't work. Only rods, no cones, we couldn't tell the difference." Like I said they can be pretty clever.