Thursday, June 16, 2011

How I Learned to Ululate for My Dog


Instead of pointlessly screaming my dog's name throughout a dog park, whilst hiking, etc., I ululate for her.

The story of how this came about is: one day, we were in an urban creek – this means that it's a small creek just off a road in a residential area; the road frequently has cars driving on it. She'd met another dog in this creek and the other dog turned out to be a runner – he was younger and so happened to be in the flight instinct stage of his development. He decided it was time to jump out of the creek and run as fast as lightning (he was a border collie mix) out into the street; my dog followed. I had intended on calling her name, or saying something else that would prove equally ineffective, but my tongue got twisted in a moment of frustration and nervousness and a sort of ululation came out instead. And, as soon as I'd done it, two dogs appeared in sight, happily bounding back to me.

So, despite the fact that it makes me sound like the crazy dog lady (or a relatively old, short, brown, non-breastplate-clad poor man's version of Xena), I now ululate whenever my dog goes out of sight and I want to recall her - and it works. Sometimes it works so well that I get an extra dog or two: bonus.