Holy Cow, Winston Speaks French!!

[Sherri, Sophie, Winston, & Kitty]

Wow! When I was in Montreal the other day with Winston there was so much French around me that my mind got locked in French mode and when I was speaking to the receptionist and Winston was tugging on the leash to greet another dog I blurted out "Winston, assis!" (sit) and sure enough, he did! He understands French!!. Who knew??

I tested this out further this morning, I looked up all the commands in French, and he knows a bunch. Assis (sit) Coucher (down), ici (come), ... I mixed them up a bit just to be sure and he always got it right. Then later on I went to sit down in a chair and he was blocking my way I said "Winston bouges-toi" (move over) and sure enough he got up and moved away. How cool is that?!!

What a cutie pie! It never occured to me that he would be bilingual. But it makes total sense. Living so close to Quebec there are a lot of French speaking communities in my area, and my city is 'officially bilingual' so of course there was good chance that one of his former owners was francophone.  Duh! I should have known. His former vet was french speaking and he was even so familiar with the grounds of the University of Ottawa, which is a primarily French university - of course he's bilingual!

I'm going to keep working on it and see if he knows any fun tricks too and I'll see if I can get it on video, although when I tried today he got a little camera shy ;-)

I'm so proud of my Pooh Bear. It amazes me that after 3 months I'm still learning so much about him!

[Rose Ann and Amante]

I talk Italian to Amante all the time !!!! My father speaks "broken" English and he understands that TOO LOL

[Jennifer,Chloe & Myla]

What a dood!! Can he teach Sophie?

[Bonnie and Kona]

Hilarious faking French video. Thanks for the entertainment.

[F, Calla & Luca]

I think that would be true for me too.

[Donna K & Quincy]

We actually get quite a few patients from the French islands of St Pierre and Miquelon just off our coast. I get the patients to write things down since I can read better than I understand the spoken word.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Well, so do I of course. But given that I'm still impressed. It's funny I do remember some of the rote stuff we learned but I only found French words easily when I was trying to learn Italian a few years ago. I gave up when I realized I just wanted to converse but I didn't want to do the work.

[Donna K & Quincy]

Don't be, I cheat!!!

[F, Calla & Luca]

O la la Donna. Tu es tres facile en francais. Je suis impressione.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Laurie, Basta would do it in Italian : )

Sherri, thanks. If the French lessons begin I might check it out but I suspect you guys won't criticize me for now for missing small details. Les commencements sont toujours difficile. Maybe we could do French proverbs, I remember some of those and a poem or two.  Il pleut sur les toits comme il pleut sut la ville... or something like that : )

[Donna K & Quincy]

Cessez et renoncez,immédiatement! Votre souhait est ma commande. Je voudrais garder tous mes amis. Laurie, would you like to join our French class. :>)