The Voice of Mollydog

[bunn]

There exists a particular sort of person that converses with you entirely through your dog, like this:

Random person (addressing dog): "Are you a rescue dog?"
Bunn the Voice of Mollydog: "Yes, she is"
Rp: "Are you a greyhound?"
BtVoM:"yes, she is a retired Irish racing greyhound"
Rp: tells a brief anecdote about Ireland *to the dog* without even looking at the owner.

Rp (addressing other dog) "And what about you, are you a greyhound too?"
Bunn the Voice of Az: "no, he is a whippet cross greyhound lurchery thing"
Rp: "And what is your name?"
Bunn the Voice of Hounds: "the ginger one is Molly and the grey one is Az"
Rp solemnly greets both hounds by name...

... and so on. This can continue for some time without the humans ever exchanging either their own names, or speaking directly to one another at all.

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I wonder how they'd react if you said nothing at all, but just stood there waiting for the dog to answer.

Perhaps you should start addressing their dog with slightly impertinent questions about their owner.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

You could always learn ventriloquism ...

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I have tried that. Eventually they give in and address the owner, but you end up feeling rude then, so I tend to do the Voice instead.

As to the other dog, the people that do this often *don't have dogs!* This makes the behaviour seem even more baffling.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Believe me, I have been tempted to reply in a special Mollydog voice, and a special Az voice. The main thing stopping me is that I can't do an Irish accent to save my life.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Maybe the reason they don't have dogs because they're labouring under this misconception that dogs habitually blab to passing strangers.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

I must admit, I do do that. Person approaches me with dog, in I swoop - "Helllooooo and who are you?". I do try to remember to glance up occasionally, but it's a struggle.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I suspected you might! :-p

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

I do this sometimes with small children, when politeness seems to demand some sort of enquiry, but I can't actually figure out whether they're a boy or a girl. Rather than try "How old is he?" and risk getting "SHE's eighteen months", safer to fix the child with a saccharine grin and ask, "And how old are /you/?".

Neuromancer

[(Anonymous)]

For that situation I like to use the catch-all term 'your little one'. Though I suppose that might be difficult if there are tribes of tiny people.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

that was me, I don't know why it forgot that in mid-post. Silly thing.

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

There are similar sorts of people (perhaps the same ones?) that converse with you entirely through your babies - and I mean tiny babies, not just older babies/toddlers who might possibly be expected to say something. Though I did harbour a fond hope, when El started talking so early and so intelligently, that one day he would surprise one of those inane interlocutors by answering for himself - unfortunately he was too shy with strangers ever to do so. [Digression ahead: except once, when Skordh's dad spent a week while we were all in Northumbria trying to teach him to say 'Canny' in response to 'And how are you then?' (imagine appropriate accent.) It didn't take, until we were in a hotel overnight afterwards on our way to a Christening, firmly in the south. As we went to breakfast a passing stranger accosted El with "Hello, how are you" and was rather surprised by the reply "I'm canny!"]

It hadn't occured to me before that there might be a reason for this strange behaviour, as Neuromancer suggests; I'll keep an eye out for that in future. Most children these days seem to be so firmly colour-coded that it's easy to tell.