Earl!

Puppy had quite a large vocabulary. Though she she could only speak in barks and yodels, dog knew the meaning of several words. Words like motorcycle, police, harley, cat and squirrel.

There were times she mixed the words up based on the beginning or end sound. Take for example school and squirrel, both start with a "ske" sound. Zoe didn't care what the ending was, all she needed to hear was the first sound and she would react. School sounded a lot like squirrel to her and squirrels needed to be dealt with in a serious manner. All forms of barking ensued with the mention of the word school.

Then there was Earl.

Earl was a family member that died and after his funeral my family got together to reminisce about him. We would say his name and recount past times. All the while, puppy would bark at us.

One conversation began about how, "Earl use to love telling children about his experiences on his job," to which Zoe reacted passionately. The more we talked about Earl the more adamantly she would vocalize her opinion. And it was a strong opinion. I turned to my sister and said, "I didn't know Zoe had even met Earl."

That's when my nephew piped up that it wasn't Earl she was reacting to but another word she was familiar with - Squirrel. Seems that the ending to squirrel is earl. SKEwaEARL. In puppy's world this made perfect sense.