Celebrate Love Your Pet Day with Teacher Robin!

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Hello, welcome to another class. I’m Robin and today I’m going to talk to you about pet vocabulary. This is one of my favorite subjects. As many of you know, I have a wonderful dog. And February 20 is actually Love Your Pet Day. Now, if you have a pet, you know that we love them every day. But I’m going to teach you today some vocabulary related to pets. Okay, and I’m wearing my favorite sweatshirt for the occasion. And as you can see, it has a dog and it says, “Don’t stop retrievin’”. Now, why does it say this? Because if you know the popular song from the 80s, “Don’t stop believin’”. So retrievin’ rhymes with believin’ and retrieve, it comes from a golden retriever, which is the kind of dog you see on the sweatshirt. To retrieve means you go and get something and you bring it back. So they could retrieve a ball, a stick, etc.

Okay, so let’s start with some vocabulary about pets. First of all, what is a pet? What does it mean to be a pet? So a pet, and I love this definition, which comes from the Cambridge dictionary. A pet is an animal that is kept in the home as a companion and treated kindly. Okay, this is important. If you’re going to have a pet, you must treat them kindly. So I want to make a distinction between the noun “pet”, okay, the animal that you have in your home, and the verb “to pet”. So the verb “to pet” means to touch gently with your hands. So actually, you can pet your pet, okay. So keep that distinction in mind between noun and verb. Also, I want to review the different pronouns that we can use for our pets. So it’s common to refer to pets with the pronoun “it”, which doesn’t specify a gender. But it’s acceptable, but you can also use “he” or “she”, depending on if it’s a male, or a female. So all three pronouns are acceptable, you can use “it” or you can use “he” or “she”.

So let’s say you do not currently have a pet, but you want to get one. What can you do? So, you might want to visit a rescue or animal shelter. This is where abandoned animals are kept until they find a family. So you might want to visit and think about adopting. Okay, so adopting is when you bring an animal home from a rescue or from a shelter. Now, if you are not sure yet, or if you’ve never had a pet before, you might think about first volunteering at the shelter, which means that you go and you walk the dogs or you help with the cats, etc. I’m a volunteer at a shelter here in Barcelona where I live and it’s a great experience. And it can help you to decide if you really want to have a pet and maybe you can meet one that fits with your lifestyle and your family. Okay, you can also foster an animal which means that you keep them until they find a family. So it’s not a permanent situation, it’s just temporary. So you can foster a dog or cat, etc. that needs a home.

Okay, so once you decide that you are going to, here’s my dog saying hello, once you decide that you are going to get a pet, you need to buy some things for them ahead of time, before you get them. Okay, I’m going to go through the different vocabulary for the items that you need for your pet. So here we have a collar, this is my dog’s collar. And actually it has his name and my phone number engraved, that means written on the collor, but if not, you can get something called a tag. They come in different shapes and sizes with your personal information. So this is important in case for some reason they get lost, you have a way to contact the owner. Okay, you will also need a leash to walk your dog. Okay, this is actually a longer leash, excuse me, which I can adjust. I can make it longer or shorter. So you need some kind of a leash. All right, you might want in addition to the collar, you might want something called a harness. So this goes around the stomach and the head. Okay, so this helps if the dog pulls a lot when you are walking them. It’s for security, you can use a harness instead. So that can be helpful. Yeah, so you’ll want to buy maybe some toys, like a ball, for example. And some bags to pick up when they go to the bathroom outside, hopefully. You need to buy some bags to pick it up, make sure you pick up after your dog. This is important. And you will need some kind of bowl or dish, one for the water and one for their food. So you can buy different kinds of food for your dog or for your cat. There is dry food, kind of kibble, which is small. It’s like small, rock-looking, looking food. And you also have canned food. And some people feed their dogs, a raw diet, which is like natural food. So there’s a mix of different kinds of foods and you can ask, in my next point, you can ask your veterinarian. And one thing if you have a cat, you’ll want to get something called a litter box, which is the box with the sand where the cat uses the, goes to the bathroom. Okay, so that’s another thing and maybe some treats if you want some special treats that you can give to them.

But again, first when you first bring the dog home or the cat, or rabbit or guinea pig, etc. There’s different kinds of animals that you can have. You’ll want to visit a local veterinarian, okay, so this is a doctor for animals. Okay, so your veterinarian you can do a checkup. So they’ll want to schedule at least a yearly checkup. He’s making noise, a yearly checkup to make sure that the dog or the cat is healthy, you want to make sure they have their vaccinations, the vaccinations and you want to get there so they’ll give you a book. And this is a vaccination record for your animal. And you also want to protect them against things like parasites, fleas, ticks, etc. So you can get different sprays or special collar that they wear or some medication that they take to protect them from all of these different things.

All right, so let’s say you are planning your vacation and you want to travel with your pet. This is very common nowadays, especially if you travel by car or by van. Many people bring their pets with them, which is great. So a few things that you will need are a carrier crate, also known as a kennel. So this is like a big, it looks like a box, basically an open box that you travel with your animals so this keeps them protected, safe when you are traveling in the car. You might need to get them a passport, just like humans have passports. In some countries, like in Europe, you’re required to have a passport if you travel between countries. So you get this at your veterinarian. And it just shows that they have their vaccinations that they’ve had a recent checkup, etc., so that they’re healthy that they can travel. And as you are planning your trip, you might want to check online, in the city or the place where you’re going if they have different places that are dog-friendly, or pet-friendly. Okay, so this “friendly” means that your pet, your dog, etc, is allowed to go there. So some hotels, apartments, Airbnbs, or restaurants, even some cultural places are pet-friendly. So this is helpful when you’re planning your vacation. So you know, when you’re going to these places that your dog, for example, can go with you.

Alright, so now that we’ve talked about pet vocabulary, I want to give you just a few kind of funny animal idioms. And these are some of my favorites, there are so many idioms, and a lot of them are related to animals or have animals in them. But these are some of my favorites. All right. Hold your horses. All right. If you tell someone to hold their horses, hold your horses, it means “Be patient, wait, relax”. So if someone is really impatient, they want something right now you say “Hold your horses”, it means “I’ll give it to you. I’ll get to you. I’ll be back with you in a minute”. All right, if something is the cat’s meow, which is funny, the cat’s meow, it means that it’s really great. Something is really cool. Really nice or a person, he’s the cat’s meow, it means that this person is great. Okay, if someone is pig-headed, pig-headed, it means that they are stubborn, or they refuse to change. Okay, so you can say “Stop being so pig-headed!” to someone, listen to what I’m saying to you. Okay, and finally, my last animal idiom is “the elephant in the room”. Okay, so this means an obvious problem or difficult situation that people, maybe if you’re in a group together, and there’s something difficult that no one wants to talk about, okay, something uncomfortable, something that everyone knows, but you don’t want to talk about this as the elephant in the room.

Okay, so now I want you to tell me, do you have a pet? And tell me about them. I’ll introduce you to mine in just a second. And so tell us about your pets. If you want to write an example with one of these idioms, then feel free. I would love to read your comments. So thanks again for joining and I will see you next week. Take care. Bye!

Okay, so let me tell you about my pet. He’s looking at this ball right here. This is my dog Mojito, or Mo for his friends. He is seven years old and I adopted him four years ago. And as you can see, he’s a medium sized mix. Don’t know exactly what kind of dog he is, he’s a mix. And, and he has been a great comfort and company to me in the pandemic and always but for those of you who have been working from home, and you have a pet, you know that it’s been a lot easier to have them to have them with us, keeping us company. So I hope you enjoyed meeting my dog and I would love to hear from you about yours.