When Cricket sings, she sounds like she’s arguing her case before the court as she gurgles and growls and rolls her R’s and squeaks and skips along the notes. I believe all of these intonations mean something to her. It’s like an aria, with slow pleading sections, and heart wrenching sections at the top of her voice, and trills just to show off.
When I was a teenager, I thought I might become a singer, so I took voice lessons. But singing actual songs left me frustrated; I couldn’t feel the songs the way I wanted to. I wanted to be expressing the deep clanging in my body and instead I felt like I was a hollow imitation of someone else.
Vocal exercises, on the other hand, reached me. There were no words, just sounds: mee, may, mah, moh, moo, on different notes, changing the shape of my mouth to round, straight, tensed, loose. Without words, the sounds seemed to be able to express something deep inside of me.
Dina, my previous dog, used to sing. It was as if she had a button in her brain and if you sang high enough for long enough, she had to sing with you. She’d lift her nose in the air as if the note was over her head and she could only reach it if she could see it. She didn’t growl and roll her R’s like Cricket, she didn’t change pitch or jazz it up; she just aimed at that high note, and howled.
The circumstances have to be just right for Cricket to start her monologue. Something deeper than food and poop issues, something about being left behind or ignored.
“Why must you sit at the computer instead of giving me scratchies and a lap to sleep on?” she’ll cry. “Why must you ignore me when I clearly want you to throw this toy for me, so I can catch it and taunt you with it?”
I listen to Cricket growling and crying and rolling her R’s and I feel like “ain’t that the truth.” It’s not that I always know what she means or what story she’s trying to tell, but whatever she’s feeling, I can feel it vibrating in my bones.
rachelmankowitz 
Wow, this is eery. I saw the picture first and thought to myself, “Aw, this looks like Cricket.” Damn if you didn’t name your dog the same thing. My cricket passed away in the early eighties, so I am thinking that your dog must be a reincarnation of my dog…So, I’d sort of like to have her back. 🙂
I can believe believe that my Cricket is a reincarnation. She seems to be at least a double dose of a dog.
It’s really nice that Cricket can communicate with you so effectively. 🙂
She works at it. When vocalizing doesn’t work, she uses her teeth.
You put it so well in writing! My female dog used to sing as well when I was playing the piano as a kid. Is Cricket is a female dog?
Yes. And, coincidentally, she’s a diva.