Watch a woman prank her dogs by using words they love on a fake phone call

[Carla_Sinclair]

Originally published at: Watch a woman prank her dogs by using words they love on a fake phone call | Boing Boing

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[jaded]

I saw some very good dogs who I hope got lots of treats and walks to the park after those “pranks”.

I didn’t think it was all that funny as it’s not a prank when the dog doesn’t understand what a telephone is; especially if you’re looking at her while saying those words. But maybe I’m just a grinch.

[knoxblox]

Smart Akila! She looks at the phone as if to see who’s calling!

I don’t get head tilts, but my cats know a couple words that they associate with good things like skritches. If I say something like “sweetie girl” to my other two cats, Ruby gets annoyed and pushes her way through to me for tailbone skritches because she believes she’s the only “sweetie girl”.

[AdmFubar]

landscape! Landscape! LANDSCAPE!!!

[knoxblox]

But landscape is almost sideways when you head tilt!

[prooftheory]

I’m under the impression that landscape isn’t a thing on TikTok.

[Aeroplane]

This is interesting, but it’s very crude.

The sophisticated version is when the dog’s attention-grabbing word (originally their name) is hidden verbally within the spoken part. François Caradec invented this conceit as “poems for dogs”. The example below is about a dog named Flush:

My mistress never slights me
When taking outdoor tea.
She brings sweet cake
For her sweet sake,
Rough, luscious bones for me.

This idea is used to wonderful affect in the (IMHO brilliant) André Alexis novel Fifteen Dogs.

[stefanjones]

Head tilts seem especially adorable when a GSD does them because of their freaking enormous upright ears and their long, expressive faces.

[avdezign]

This suggest that your dog knows what a phone is for… I don’t think so

[Shuck]

My dog ignores his “favorite words” when they occur in contexts where they don’t mean anything. But I suppose if I used a sing-song voice while looking directly at him (which I suspect is what’s happening in these videos), he’d respond, regardless of what I was holding to my head. He would, like these dogs, probably be confused by all the extraneous words I was inserting into the sentences, rather than clearly communicating my intent to him as per usual.

[Nightflyer]

They might not understand the concept of phone, but dogs do learn the context of certain words. The dogs my family had when I was in college sure did. If one of us mentioned pizza, they would go to the phone, then the money drawer, then wait by the door for the delivery. We eventually started spelling pizza; they learned that one too. The dog I have now perks up when I call in a pizza, so since she knows that word, I try to make the call in another room. Sometimes it even works…

(Note: the dogs only got/get a couple of bites of crust, and maybe a couple of stray meat toppings, only enough for a taste. But yes, dogs love pizza!)

[ClutchLinkey]

OMG. Back in the “before times” I would get annoyed if someone in the group sat at the table (if we were out together) talking loudly on their phone. Just seems antisocial. But those dogs showed me the perfect, non-cranky response. I wonder how much intense interest it would take to get them to decide it was probably better to leave the table for the conversation.

[Iason]

Them dogs are confused because they know when you’re actually on the phone, because they can hear the person on the other side. They’re all: “Is she talking to herself? She’s being weird. She has the talkey thing in her hand, but it’s pointed at us, and no quiet talking is coming out of it. Humans are strange.”