On a typical quiet day at Stone Manor, Sampson and Delilah are sacked out on the couch. Unless a dog walks up or down the street.
Sampson is usually the first one to discover whatever it is that is moving on his street. He will look out the window, then run either to the sliding door in the den or to the back door to go outside. If he goes outside he will run to one of the gates and stand there barking greeting his new friend.
Yesterday there was such a ruckus in the house, with the two fools barking their heads off, I thought for sure a pack of wild dogs were running down the street. Naturally we all got up to investigate.
Do you see what I see?
The neighbor across the street apparently got a remote control car. I’m not exactly what they thought it was, but it held their interest for a couple of minutes. 🙂
Are your dogs nosy like mine? Does a dog walking on your street have the same effect on your dog? And can one of you tell me if I used effect correctly, or should it have been affect? 🙂
Affect means influence. I think I would have used affect in that sentence. I think effect means when you bring something about.
Lila is very nosy!
I looked up both words and still couldn’t figure it out! LOL Thanks Mary Ann!
I love that picture!! My dogs bark like fools if the wind blows…lol
Yes I would say you used the correct word.
effect: something that inevitably follows an antecedent (as a cause or agent)
affect: the conscious subjective aspect of an emotion considered apart from bodily changes; also: a set of observable manifestations of a subjectively experienced emotion
Sorry I have a thing about looking up words to see if I am using them correctly 😉
No I appreciate your input, I looked them up too and still wasn’t sure! LOL
I guess I kind of went with the fact that dogs don’t really have emotions and that seemed how affect was used. And effect seemed like it was a cause and effect which is what I think happens with our barking dogs…lol I think either way you would be right though.
The effect a dog trotting across a nearby fields has on my dogs is to make them bark hysterically!
😉
I wonder why? For my dogs (especially Sampson) he wants to greet them. Once (at our old house) he ran out in the street to greet a dog and was rewarded for it by a bite on the ear!
I think you chose the correct word Jodi.
That picture of Sampson and Delilah is classic nosy-parkers! My dogs were like that – as soon as they heard a noise on the street, they were both up at the window checking it out! Nosy little so-and-so’s!
Thanks Barb, I think he takes after my mother. 🙂 She had a big influence on him as a small up. 😛
Affect is almost always a verb. You used the correct word . . . but I have to admit, I often question these as well. 😀
AND yes, my dogs (all THREE of them) do exactly the same thing. It’s maddening AND funny at the same time.
There are just a couple of words I get confused on. Effect/affect, then/than, lay/lie. I will admit that I struggle with adjects and adverbs and I don’t what category those words fall in. LOL
We actually leave the shades up at two windows so that Chase can look and and keep up his guard. I don’t know about others, but the dog is different with outsiders depending on who is home. If it is just me, he has this really deep growl besides the barking. If it is Mike alone or the two of us, he may bark or not.
Oh Chase, I still have that picture of him watching out the window!
That is sweet, he knows when you need more protection, what a good boy. I haven’t noticed that with either of my dogs, I’ll have to try and pay attention.
When I walk my dogs every dog along the way barks at us whether they are behind a fence or inside a house. I wonder what it is that the dogs hear when they can’t see us.
I’ve often wondered if it’s a sound, a smell or what. But they definitely know when someone or something is out there.
Sounds just about exactly like my boys’ response to just about any stimulus in the front. Fozzie puts his front paws on the radiator so he can get a good look out the front window then lets ’em have it, whoever is brazen enough to walk in front of our house. He’ll show THEM!
I think Sampson wants the people to come in and say hello. 🙂 He really is that social.
A couple of true sentinels there!
affect=verb (almost always)
effect=noun(almost always)
“The other dogs affect my dogs this way.” or
“The other dogs have this effect on my dogs.”
LOL. I love all the grammar chat!
This post makes me kind of glad we don’t have a front window for my dog to stare out of. Our living room window faces the backyard and is too high for her to see out of unless she stands on the television. When we had the room arranged the other way she would sometimes bark at our neighbour who regularly does tai chi in his backyard. But these days it is nice and quiet.
Mostly. 😛
I am really bad at grammar (like you couldn’t tell) I need a grammar class. 🙁
That’s a great idea, I could move the sofa but then they would just put their paws on the window sill.
All three of mine are nosy bodies…and when one barks the others join in before they even know what’s out there.
I’m not sure Jodi, but I’m actually leaning towards “affect” for the same reason as Mary Ann says.
But really, I think it could read either way in that particular sentence.
I tend to think “affect” as in affecting emotions. So seeing something outside affects my dogs by getting them excited.
Effect, to me, is more like the result. Which could be the barking. The effect of seeing something outside is that my dogs bark.
Good question!
I think the consensus is tied. Some think effect and some think affect. I guess I need to find my college English teacher….:-)
Yes sometimes one barks and the other one immediately barks as well, before they even know what it is. They’re silly.
Oh I could see that car being trouble around here. Something small moving fast…yep…trouble!
Absolutely. It would be just a tiny bit smaller than Freighter, which could mean BIG trouble!
ha ha! desmond does not even know our windows exist–and i’m happy to keep it that way. whenever we let him sit at the front door and look through the glass, he whines and/or barks at every dog who passes.
That might actually be pretty good for him. To see the others but not be able to reach them. I love it when they whine. Delilah does it every morning when I make her sit while I fix her breakfast. 🙂