Toby, the ASL dog!

What our friends above are gesturing is American Sign Language (ASL) for "Good Dog". Why is this important? Because tonight at the park we met a dog who's name was Toby and his owners were deaf.

Toby (spelt in the letters to the left T-O-B-Y), who was a 7 month old Cockapoo, was at the park when we pulled up. His owner, who mom and dad had also seen last night at the park, signed that she was going to leave Toby to play while she ran home and got her older sister to help communicate. We had so much fun running and playing with Toby while mom and dad seemed to have a great conversation with the older sister.

Toby would run and chase me while I ran as fast as I could after my ball. Sister was walking around doing her usual sniffing and marking of the park and then even she got in the game and chased me, then chased Toby, then he turned the tables and chased her.  He had fun, and he made sure he told us so. He barked and bark and barked, then we chimed in and had the 3 Dog Barking Trio (we're thinking that's a good name for our acappella group)


Mom and Dad want to learn basic ASL so they can communicate next time we see them their, which we hope is real soon!