National Pooches Radio

When Mr. B first came into our home, he was very anxious and this was clearly audible whenever we left the pooches home. Mr. B would howl and bark so loud that we can hear him at the end of the block and he would continue until we came home.

We thought that we would have to live as people on house arrest, but lucky for us, Curtis was able to "cure" Mr. B of his isolation distress. One of the tactics we used to calm Mr. B down whenever we left was to play a recording of us talking in the second bedroom. It was a bit unnerving to come home to hear us talking down the hall, so we started playing the radio in addition to the recording. Over time, we were able to stop the recording, but we kept playing the radio because we had this strange feeling that the pooches would be upset missing an episode of Fresh Air. 

 

A takes reading specialist classes, and she is learning about emerging language literacy and she has learned that one of the most important things for language acquisition is to hear spoken language. We believe that Miss M is really benefitting from having Chicago Public Radio on all day and she actually knows differences in words. She knows 'tomorrow' meaning the itinerary for the next day, and she also knows that 'party' and 'riding in the car' are something to be excited about. 

But to poor Mr. B all of the talking on the radio is just background noise and after years of hearing news radio, he still cannot tell the difference between shake and down.