What if Dogs Could Talk?

I was in the Jewel of the Nile, Seattle Washington this last weekend and I got to talking with someone (I don't really know how to define our relationship but I feel like whenever we hang out we really hit it off, and we have been on one date) made the comment that he* doesn't like those books that are all facts. And I agreed with him, and I gave a stupid example of a stupid fact. The example I gave was: "Dogs can read." Now, I thought it was so ridiculous that there was no way it could be true. But then this person with whom I have an ambiguous relationship and I got to thinking, and we expounded on this point. I would like to tell you what we thought of, and then expound further.

So, let's accept the assumption that all dogs can read. This, obviously does not assume that they can also write, or talk. Obviously they couldn't write. We (humans) have opposable thumbs, and not even all of us (humans) can write (you know, like doctors, and old people, and babies.) So there's no way to expect dogs to be able to write, even though they can in fact read. The same goes for speaking. Obviously they don't have the vocal chord capacity to speak English, or any other language. Again, being able to read doesn't, and shouldn't imply any other language skills. But the point is, dogs can read but not write or talk.

This becomes especially interesting when you consider the amount of free time dogs have. Really the only way to know what a dog is doing all the time is to carry it around in a bag, like a sociopath. Nobody really knows what every dog is doing at all times. And really, who knows how much a dog sleeps? If I had to give an estimate, I would put dogs at around 18-20 hours of free time per day. And what are they going to do during all this free time? They can only play stick and ball games for so long. At some point the owner is going to get bored. After taking out play time, time to eat, and time to sleep, dogs probably have roughly 14 hours of free time per day. And what do you think they're doing during this time?

Reading, duh. And while there's no way to really know how fast a dog can read, we can at least assume that dogs are extremely well read. But here's the kicker, there's no way for dogs to communicate. So, as far as each dog knows, they're the only dog in the world that can read. Sure they can read, but it's not like they're geniuses. So, whenever they run into another dog, they have to communicate with it in the way they know that dogs communicate: by barking. And, probably as far as they know, the other dog understands the barking, so it totally works.

So, basically, there's however many dogs in the world who are really very well read, barking only because that's how they think dogs are supposed to communicate. Because they've read it, in a book. Prove me wrong.


*I'm straight... Ladies...