People have a natural tendency to anthropomorphize their pets, to ascribe human perceptions and intentions to the animals where none exist. In Einstein's case, where there really was an exceptional intelligence at work, the temptation to see profound meaning in every meaningless doggy twitch was even greater than usual.
“We’re going to study all these pictures, looking for things that interest you, for things that’ll help us understand where you came from and how you got to be what you are. Every time you see something that’ll help us put the puzzle together, you’ve got somehow to bring it to our attention. Bark at it or put a paw on it or wag your tail.”
“This is nuts,” Travis said.
“Do you understand me, Einstein?” Nora asked.
The retriever issued a soft woof.
“This will never work,” Travis said.
“Yes, it will,” Nora insisted. “He can’t talk, can’t write, but he can show us things. If he points out a dozen pictures, we might not immediately understand what meaning they have for him, how they refer to his origins, but in time we’ll find a way to relate them to one another and to him, and we’ll know what he’s trying to tell us.”
The dog, his head still trapped firmly in Nora’s hands, rolled his eyes toward Travis and woofed again.
“We ready?” Nora asked Einstein.
His gaze flicked back to her, and he wagged his tail.
“All right,” she said, letting go of his head. “Let’s start.”
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, for hours at a time, they leafed through scores of publications, showing Einstein pictures of all kinds of things- people, trees, flowers, dogs, other animals, machines, city streets, country lanes, cars, ships, planes, food, advertisements for a thousand products- hoping he would see something that would excite him. The problem was that he saw many things that excited him, too many. He barked at, pawed at, woofed at, put his nose to, or wagged his tail at perhaps a hundred out of the thousands of pictures, and his choices were of such variety that Travis could see no pattern to them, no way to link them and divine meaning from their association to one another.
Einstein was fascinated by an automobile ad in which the car, being compared to a powerful tiger, was shown locked in an iron cage. Whether it was the car or the tiger that seized his interest was not clear. He also responded to several computer advertisements, Alpo and Purina Dog Chow ads, an ad for a portable stereo cassette player, and pictures of books, butterflies, a parrot, a forlorn man in a prison cell, four young people playing with a striped beach ball, Mickey Mouse, a violin, a man on an exercise treadmill, and many other things. He was tantalized by a photograph of a golden retriever like himself, and was downright excited by a picture of a cocker spaniel, but curiously he showed little or no interest in other breeds of dogs.
His strongest-and most puzzling-response was to a photo in a magazine article about an upcoming movie from 20th Century-Fox. The film’s story involved the supernatural-ghosts, poltergeists, demons risen from Hell- and the photo that agitated him was of a slab-jawed, wickedly fanged, lantern-eyed demonic apparition. The creature was no more hideous than others in the film, less hideous than several of them, yet Einstein was affected by only that one demon.
The retriever barked at the photograph. He scurried behind the sofa and peeked around the end of it as if he thought the creature in the picture might rise off the page and come after him. He barked again, whined, and had to be coaxed back to the magazine. Upon seeing the demon a second time, Einstein growled menacingly. Frantically, he pawed at the magazine, turning its pages until, somewhat tattered, it was completely closed.
“What’s so special about that picture?” Nora asked the dog.
Einstein just stared at her-and shivered slightly.
Patiently, Nora reopened the magazine to the same page.
Einstein closed it again.
Nora opened it.
Einstein closed it a third time, snatched it up in his jaws, and carried it out of the room.
Travis and Nora followed the retriever into the kitchen, where they watched him go straight to the trash can. The can was one of those with a foot pedal that opened a hinged lid. Einstein put a paw on the pedal, watched the lid open, dropped the magazine into the can, and released the pedal.
“What’s that all about?” Nora wondered.
“I guess that’s one movie he definitely doesn’t want to see.”
“Our own four-footed, furry critic.”
That incident occurred Thursday afternoon. By early Friday evening, Travis’s frustration-and that of the dog-were nearing critical mass.
Sometimes Einstein exhibited uncanny intelligence, but sometimes he behaved like an ordinary dog, and these oscillations between canine genius and dopey mutt were enervating for anyone trying to understand how he could be so bright. Travis began to think that the best way to deal with the retriever was to just accept him for what he was: be prepared for his amazing feats now and then, but don’t expect him to deliver all the time. Most likely the mystery of Einstein’s unusual intelligence would never be solved.
However, Nora remained patient. She frequently reminded them that Rome wasn’t built in a day and that any worthwhile achievement required determination, persistence, tenacity, and time.
When she launched into these lectures about steadfastness and endurance, Travis sighed wearily-and Einstein yawned.
Nora was unperturbed. After they had examined the pictures in all of the books and magazines, she collected those to which Einstein had responded, spread them out across the floor, and encouraged him to make connections between one image and another.
“All of these are pictures of things that played important roles in his past,” Nora said.
“I don’t think we can be certain of that,” Travis said.
“Well, that’s what we’ve asked him to do,” she said. “We’ve asked him to indicate pictures that might tell us something about where he’s come from.”
“But does he understand the game?”
“Yes,” she said with conviction.
The dog woofed.
Nora lifted Einstein’s paw and put it on the photograph of the violin. “Okay, pooch. You remember a violin from somewhere, and it was important to you somehow.”
“Maybe he performed at Carnegie Hall,” Travis said.
“Shut up.” To the dog Nora said, “All right. Now is the violin related to any of these other pictures? Is there a link to another image that would help us understand what the violin means to you?”
Einstein stared at her intently for a moment, as if pondering her question. Then he crossed the room, walking carefully in the narrow aisles between the rows of photographs, sniffing, his gaze flicking left and right, until he found the ad for the Sony portable stereo cassette player. He put one paw on it and looked back at Nora.
“There’s an obvious connection,” Travis said. “The violin makes music, and the cassette deck reproduces music. That’s an impressive feat of mental association for a dog, but does it really mean anything else, anything about his past?”
“Oh, I’m sure it does,” Nora said. To Einstein she said, “Did someone in your past play the violin?”
The dog stared at her.
She said, “Did your previous master have a cassette player like that one?”
The dog stared at her.
She said, “Maybe the violinist in your past used to record his own music on a cassette system?”
The dog blinked and whined.
“All right,” she said, “is there another picture here that you can associate with the violin and the tape deck?”
Einstein stared down at the Sony ad for a moment, as if thinking, then walked into another aisle between two more rows of pictures, this time stopping at a magazine open to a Blue Cross advertisement that showed a doctor in a white coat standing at the bedside of a new mother who was holding her baby. Doctor and mother were all smiles, and the baby looked as serene and innocent as the Christ child.