Dog Whisperers Poem by Dr Ronnie Bai

Some people believe that they are dog experts
For they can whisper to their wistful dogs
Sweet talking them into behaving themselves
The same way they do their sweet babies
Who must not be heard but be seen.

Hence they are prepared to be patient
And are solemnly scientific.
Darwin’s evolution of species is no strange theory
Modern statistics is no foreign method,
Cutting edge technology of brain scan,
State of art equipment for heart beat, blood
Pessure, adrenaline surge, hormonal release,
All big guns amassed for the campaign
Vouchsafing an everlasting victory
Of mankind against their canine companion
Whose peaceful co-existence is ever,
Ever of significance so profound.

Plentiful frolicking with the dogs heavily
Bribed with patting, coaxing, grooming, and feeding
With generous bones scattering soon succumbs them
To the scientific onslaught of the dog whisperers
Doggedly seeking to diagnose the doggie demeanour.

One cannot question their scientific method,
Much less their humanitarian approach,
For indeed they treat the dogs seriously
More so than their babies, for they are their babies
And cannot be replaced with their own babies
Whose cries mothers understand intuitively,
Whose laughers their siblings join collectively,
Whose cognitive babblings fathers encourage smilingly.

Intuitively, collectively, smilingly
The dog whisperers and their baby dogs
Understand, join, and encourage each other,
Conversing in that verbal language of whining,
growling, barking, its intonation and pronunciation
simultaneously native and foreign,
Articulating in that gestural language of tumbling, wagging,
Tonguing, licking and munching, its continuity and variation
Both entertaining and unsettling.

I am also a whisperer to my dog, showing him
Adequate affection, most of which is reserved entirely
For my friends, neighbours and my family particularly,
It bothers me not whether he can understand, though
Why at midnight from the upstair widow,
A slipper at him a frustrated arm will throw.

He is to be seen, not to be heard.