英语口语高级训练(lesson2)b

3. Dogs Have a Sense of Humour The question of whether dogs have a sense of humour is often fiercely argued. My own opinion is that some have and some haven't. Dachshunds have, but not'St Bernards or Great Danes. Apparently¹ a dog has to be small to be fond of joke. You never find a Great Dane trying to be a comedian².
　　But it is fatal to let any dog know that he is funny, for he immediately loses his head and starts overdoing³ it. As an` example of this I would point to Rudolph, a dachshund I once owned, whose slogan was “Anything for a I.augh”。 Dachshunds are always the worst offenders<sup>4</sup> in this respect because of their peculiar<sup>5</sup> shape. It is only natural that when a dog finds that his mere<sup>6</sup> appearance makes the viewing public laugh, he should imagine that Nature intended him to be a comedian.
　　I had a cottage at t.he time outside an English village,not far from a farm.where they kept ducks, and one day the farmer called on me to say his ducks were disappearing and suspicion had fallen on my Rudolph. Why？ I asked, and he said because mine was the only dog in the neighbourhood except his own Towser, and Towser had been so carefully trained that he would not touch a duck if you brought it to him with orange sauce over it.
　　I was very annoyed. I said he only had to gaze intp Rudolph's truthful<sup>7</sup> brown eyes to see how baseless were his suspicions. Had he not, I asked, heard of foxes？ How much more likely that a fox was the Bad Guy in the story. He was beginning to look doubtful and seemed about to make an apology, when Rudolph, who had been listening with the greatest interest and at a certain point had left the room, came trotting<sup>8</sup> in with a duck in his mouth. Yes, dachshunds overplay their sense of humour, and I suppose other dogs have their faults, but they seem unimportant compared with their virtues<sup>9</sup>.
　　4. Man and Animal In ancient Egypt, people believed that the cat was a god. When a cat died its owners showed their sadness by the strange habit of shaving their eyebrows<sup>10</sup> off（ More recently, in the last century in fact, the famous English writer Charles Dickens had a cat who was very fond of him. The cat didn't like to see Dickens working too hard. At night, when the cat wanted to say “Stop writingl” to his master, he often put out Dickens' candle with his paw！
　　When animals become pets, the result, after a number of generations, is a smaller animal with a smaller brain. Rabbits, for example, which live as pets in a garden, are much less intelligent than their wild cousins. Of course, man doesn't always keep animals for pleasure. Many animals have to work for their masters. There was once a farm in Namibia, Africa, which had 80 goats. Instead of a goatherd, there was a female baboon<sup>11</sup>. She took her goats to the hills every day and brought them back at night. She always knew exactly which goats were hers-which is more than many humans could do！
　　5. Do Animals Communicate？
　　When we think of communication, we normally think of using words-talking face-to-face, writing messages and so on. But in fact we communicate far more in other ways. Our eyes and facial expressions usually tell the truth even when our words do not. Then there are gestures, often unconscious： raising the eyebrows, rubbing the nose, shrugging the shoulders, tapping the fingers, noddin and shaking the head.
　　There is also the even more subtle “bodylanguage” language“of posture<sup>12</sup>： are you sitting-or standing<sup>13</sup>-with arms or legs crossed？ Is that person standing with hands in pockets, held in front of the body or hidden behind ？ Even the way we dress and the colours we wear communicate things to others. So, do animals communicate？ Not in words, although a parrot might be trained to repeat words and phrases which it doesn,t understand. But, as we have learnt, there is more to communication than words.
　　Take dogs for example. They bare their teeth to warn, wag their tails to welcome and stand firm, with hair erect<sup>14</sup>, to challenge. These signals are surely the cani ne equivalent of the human body-language of facial expression, gesture and posture. Colour can be an important means of communication for animals. Many birds and fish change colour, for example, to attract partners during the mating season. And mating itself is commonly preceded by a special dance in which both partners participate.
　　6. She's All for the Birdsl Twice a week, 58-year-old Mrs. Winifred Cass shops in the market for her main supplies, “topping up” daily by calling at local shops on her way home from work. But    she,s not buying family groceries！
　　She returns home laden<sup>15</sup> with heavy bags of mixed hen corn, pigeon corn, peanuts and large p ackets of bird food to feed her larger “family”, the wild birds of I,eeds. And she's been doing this for 16 years.
　　Daily, she feeds the birds which frequent her garden, the area around the shop where she works part-time, and several pa tches of waste-ground near her home. Then, twice every week, she ioads the carrying basket with bags of grain on to her tricycle and sets out to pedal the 20-min！ate ride up to rthe city centre.“In the morning, birds on my own roof at home hang almost upsidedown trying to see me through the windows.” She laughed. “In severe conditions last winter, I had as many as four robins<sup>16</sup> in my garden at the same time, though they're well known to be territorial<sup>17</sup> birds.
　　“It's amazing how many different kinds of birds I see in the city itself . In Park Square, as well as the usual starlings, pigeons and sparrows, there are blue tits, great tits, thrushes, doves, and sometimes even seagulls.”It all started when Winifred was working at a cafe. She used to throw out stale bread and buns, and developed such an interest in the wild birds which accepted her offerings that she started taking food along to those in City Square as well.
　　On one occasion, an old lady sitting in the square remarked that the birds could do with a more nutritious<sup>18</sup> diet. So Winifred began buying corn for them.“In the end, I was carrying so much weight and tramping so far that my feet and arms really ached, ？she said. ”I tried using wheeled shoppers, but with the weight of all that corn they were breaking within weeksl So I splashed out and bought this tricycle.“
　　Winifred has come across other wild-life on her travels, too. “I stop to feed families of hedgehogs which I found at the side of the railway near the park,” she said. Despite her love of birds, she'd never want to keep one because she can't bear seeing them caged. Disaster struck recently when a car reversed into her parked trike, damaging its wheels. But two local business men, hearing of her activities, decided<sup>19</sup> kindly<sup>20</sup> to help by replacing the wheels for her. So now the “Bird Woman of Leeds” is back in action again, doing the job she loves best-caring for the host of feathered friends who have come to rely on her.
　　7. Too Many Pets in France In France a campaign has been launched to warn against the danger of a threatening over-population . . . of petsl The country is the second most densely<sup>21</sup> populated country in the world as far as domestic animals are concerned. At the moment it is inhabited by more than 8% million dogs and almost as many cats. Every second family in Paris owns one or more pets, which cause problems of hygiene<sup>22</sup> that cannot be solved. In the year 2000 France will have more than 15 million dogs if no drastic measures are taken to stop this increase.
　　The French organization for the protection of animals has appealed to the owners to have their dogs and cats of both sexes sterilized<sup>23</sup>, because the animals themselves are in danger of becoming the first victims. Every summer, when the holiday-exodus begins, thousands of dogs and cats are abandoned, because their owners, unable to take them along, do not want to or cannot find homes where their pets will be looked after during their absence. Only one of three of these stray animals can be adopted, the other two must be killed.
　　A great number of pet-owners, however, object to sterilization<sup>24</sup> on grounds of “inadmissable cruelty”。
　　8. Pets Eat Better Than Peoplel“My mouth watered as I imagined the lovely soup I could make from some bones in the butcher's window. There was a lot of meat on them, too. So I went in and bought some. `Certainly, one pound of bones for your dog, madam,' said the butcher brightly. My next stop was at the fish shop, where I asked for some cheap fish. 'For your cat？, asked the assistant. As you may have guessed, neither bones nor fish were for pets-they were for me, a pensioner²⁵. But it made me think that many animals eat better meals than peoplel”
　　9. A Birthday Present for a Dog！
　　“We have a friend who works in a Dog Parlour where they sell coats for dogs. A customer, choosing a coat, tried to describe her dog and the saleswoman suggested she bring the dog in so that they could fit him. Horrified²⁶, the customer replied that she couldn't do that as it was for the dog's birthday present and she didn't want him to see it！ ”