Author: Richard Nestoff (Page 17 of 58)

I’m still baffled by Sparky’s response to the word, “crank”.  Sparky wakes up with crank. 

Sparky’s godmother, Laurie Anderson, made a art movie called Heart of a Dog featuring her dog, Lolabelle.  She says that rat terriers can understand 500 words.  Now, she just has to figure out which words they are.  It’s funny when Laurie Anderson says it.  That’s how I feel with Sparky.  I wonder what other words trigger a response and if the word is actually “crank” or something that sounds similar.

When I say the word, he responds instantly.  He doesn’t get excited or fearful, he just gets alert and walks away.  It’s happened three times.  First, by accident, and the second time, late at night when he was 70% sleeping.  The third time was when I shot the video.  That’s the only time I noticed where he went.  Afterward, he seems disappointed or vexed.  Not at me, just at the situation.  It takes him about 15 minutes to cheer up. 

Schools do a fire drill every month, but only when kids are there.  If there was a fire alarm at school on a professional development day, we’d all evacuate like we should.  If the principal announced that it was a drill to keep us vigilant, we would have the same sullen demeanor that Sparky exhibits.

I’m tempted to experiment with words that sound similar, but Sparky’s response makes me reluctant to put him through that.  I don’t want to be a crank yanker.  Coincidentally, Crank Yankers was a TV show by Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla where they’d prank call people.  Pursuing this with Sparky would feel like a series of mean-spirited pranks.

I’ll never know how or why Sparky triggers on “crank”.  I’m not going to avoid using the 9 four-letter words that end in “ank”, or the 17 five-letter words, but I will be attentive to any response.

In movies, people can be brainwashed and  given a post-hypnotic suggestion that causes them to respond in a peculiar way when they hear the trigger word.  Sparky has that.

I discovered the word accidentally.  “Crank” isn’t a word that comes up too often.  I verified it late last night, when Sparky was 70% asleep.  He wasn’t eager to get up to go out, so I said “crank”, and he responded just like this.

Here is the slow motion analysis.