In the past, I’ve compared various human and canine body parts—and I’m afraid humans come up just a bit short. I wish I could say it’s different for ears, but I’m afraid it isn’t.

I won’t spend a lot of time on human ears: males grow fur in them; females hang shiny bits and pieces from them. But for hearing? Not so good. Males especially seem to have trouble hearing females. They make grunting noises, but I don’t think they actually hear what has been said. That just makes the females irritable and louder, which hurts our ears.

My ears stand up. I know that not all dogs’ do and I sympathize with those of you who have floppy ears. Still, your hearing is far better than the best of humans’ hearing. For those of us whose ears do stand up, no sound is too faint to escape our notice—a friend barking three houses away; a bee buzzing; a squirrel chattering; a big dump crate rumbling down the road; a pork chop hitting the floor.

We can swivel our ears in every direction to home in on just where that squirrel is and where that pork chop touched down. We can pin our ears back to run; prick them up to be vigilant. We can display our emotions: happy, apologetic, worried. Use your ears to show your humans how glad you are to see them and how sorry you are when they find that empty bread wrapper.

Chow,

Baxter

Thought for the month: Ears back for speed and up for joy.