Dog owners are used to certain sounds that can often send dog-less owners to the phone for a 9-1-1 call.

For instance, a loud CRASHING sound off the hallway wall means a tennis ball thrown high and outside for our *Jack Russell, who responds with scrambling and sometimes frantic or angry yelps as the ball bounces back from the end of the hall. This forces her to re-adjust pursuit, twisting or launching in all directions to get the ball. Most baseball people associate this move with Derek Jeter on a double-play, but it’s really the “Bridgy Twist”, named for our Jack Russell.

This doesn’t mean she’s going to actually retrieve the ball. Retrieving the ball is not in her job description. Labradors and other dogs with “Retriever” attached to their resume are – with proper training, steroid abuse and copious blood-doping – supposed to actually bring the ball back and drop it at your feet. Jack Russells challenge you to take it away, sometimes pressing it into your palm for a friendly game of “rip it out of my vise-like grip you pathetic weasel.”

As stated above, any CRASHING sound off the hallway wall signifies this great tradition. BARKING and GROWLING like a wolf are the universal sounds of dog ownership, unless your spouse has just returned from the annual office party dressed in someone else’s wardrobe.

Barking and growling signifies one of several billion things occurring. For a simplified explanation of “Things Which May Cause a Dog to Bark or Growl,” we’ll take a very short look at paragraph three, sub-context twenty-nine in the “notes” section of “Squirrels”:

1) A squirrel is in the yard..

2) A squirrel has just gone by the yard.

3) A squirrel in Australia just had a passing thought about something that may resemble your yard, before becoming the subject of yet another Australian wildlife expert wearing khakis and yelling endless facts.

4) An acorn bounced off your roof, reminding the dog of squirrels — or acorns — which should never attack your house and need to know this immediately, with a good barking or two, usually for hours, starting at 2 am.

Often your neighbor is also warned about this allusion to squirrels, just in case. Often the neighbor consists of a temperamental strong man for a large mob family.

SCRATCHING is often employed once BARKING and GROWLING has been used to exit the home. If scratching is used for signaling the owner that a dog would like to please re-enter the home, that owner is often rewarded with a doggy-gift, which can be a pleasant surprise and/or horror, ranging from a lost wallet to any number of headless rodents in various states of decay and/or death throes.

MINOR EXPLODING SOUNDS is another dog sound with possible dire consequences. A lot of these can quickly escalate into MAJOR EXPLODING SOUNDS, and owners should beware. A lot of these sounds are accompanied by heinous gaseous expulsions similar to rotten eggs, or lethal gas encountered during any number of military operations. Also known as FARTING, explosive sounds can often be controlled by diet, or access to garbage, certain leftovers, or headless rodents.

I’ll end it here, as this is a subject we’re all very familiar with, which seems to gain more exposure every year in kid’s movies, books, and toys. It’s very much like a prat-fall, funny to witness from a distance, painful to experience firsthand.

BREAKING GLASS is another sound dog owners can relate to, often accompanied by SCREECHING CAT, SCREAMING KIDS, SWEARING SPOUSE, LOUD SIRENS, and the most famous of all, WORLD WAR THREE. Breaking glass often signals an all-out attack on the cat, while dragging your kid by the leash , while your spouse verbally reacts to the affair, with an ambulance responding to possible lacerations or a call from the neighbor. Of course, the whole thing could spiral, and an endless butterfly effect would bring the end of life as we know it. These are all familiar sounds to your average dog owner.

* Yeah they call ‘em Parsons Terrier now, but only across the pond, where proper English language means more to the British than our football season, which is just insane. Not that they even play football, which in Great Britain actually means soccer, which is even crazier, like driving on the wrong side of the road. They don’t even run on Dunkin’, they walk on tea. Slowly. With attitude. Like our greyhounds.