MUFFIN’S PET CONNECTION: Week of April 12

HEY JUDE: “I AM FITCH, A 10-MONTH-OLD, MALE GERMAN SHORTHAIRED POINTER. HELP ME, PLEASE. I am all alone in this big world; I need a home and a friend now. I am great with kids. I love my Kong and relaxing at home with my family. I am a medium size, handsome brown/chocolate with black smooth-coated fella. I am neutered, housetrained, purebred, and up to date with shots.

“Please call Laurie Bleier, the president of Brooklyn Animal Foster Network and ask to meet me. Love begins with a phone call…917-754-3537. This could be the beginning of a pawfect relationship.”

WE GET LETTERS: DEAR CAT, In the March 8 column, you inquired about a cat’s vocabulary, the diphthong and tripthong which appeared in February 8 column.

To me, a human who is currently owned by four cats, it sounds like deeper guttural sounds, almost like words. I do a double take whenever my four-year-old Mouse says me n-o-o-o-w when he is super hungry. He is the king, eating his meals on his shelf in the kitchen.

As he sits in front of his empty bowl, looking down at it, then glaring at me, Mouse demands that I fill his dish, me n-o-o-o-w me n-o-o-o-w me n-o-o-o-w. I jump to his majesty’s command. He eats first; my three female kitties have to wait until his tummy is fed.

I discovered this chart demonstrating the diphthongs and tripthongs of General American (GenAm) and Standard British English (RP) It was designed with Flash animation by Eric Armstrong of York University, Toronto, Canada; and voiced by Paul Meier, of the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. It is provided as an aid to actors learning accents, and students of dialects and phonetics — paulmeier.com/ipa/diphthongs.html .

Hopefully, this helps explain the magic of cat’s communication. They do have special ways of meee-ooow-ing their opinions.

FUN DOG FACTS: A small breed dog’s stomach is the size of a walnut. Dogs have twice as many muscles for moving their ears as peoples. Dogs use these ear muscles to display over 100 different facial expressions. These extraordinary ears also help dogs hear sounds at four times the distance that humans can.