英语访谈对话 380 Dogs

 　　Adrienne: So, Mary, who are these guys here?

　　Mary: This one's Piper. She's seven. She just had a birthday in October, and this one's Daisy, she's got kind of an older face on her. I think she's probably about nine years old.

　　Adrienne: Are these your children?

　　Mary: You know, they could be my children, but they’re actually dogs. Golden Retrievers.

　　Adrienne: They're so pretty.

　　Mary: Yeah, they're a lot of my attention. They really have my heart captured right now, so I do spend a lot of time, you know, working on them and training them and taking them out for walks during the day and as you can tell by the big giant basket behind you they have a lot of toys so they're kind of active. They like swinging stuff around and playing outside. (Pipe. Hi, there!).

　　Adrienne: So how did you get them?

　　I actually raised a Golden Retriever puppy¹ for about 8 years. When I lost her, I remember thinking to myself, I'd love to have another golden retriever but puppies² are really hard work, and wouldn't it be great if I could just find a dog that was already an adult, and I made mention to it to someone at work one day and she let me know of an organization, a rescue organization that worked primarily with Golden Retrievers, so I contacted the organization and they had several dogs available for adoption³ and I went and met a few, and kind of figured out their personalities⁴ and decided⁵ that there was one there for me, and that was Tucker, my big, big male who I had for a long time, so I ended up adopting him when he was a year and a half. He still had a lot of puppy in him, but he was already housebroken, and you know, in pretty good shape for bringing home so he was a lot of fun. That was my first experience with the organization, and they are a great organization. I really believe in a lot of the work they do, because a couple of the dogs, Piper in particular, happen to have been an abused animal unfortunately in the first part of her life so this organization spent a lot of time kind of evaluating the right kind of environment for an animal, and the right kind of animal for a family so the adoption process, as they call it, it's really involved, It's almost like adopting a child because they want to make sure that you're home is, you know properly set up for a dog this size and that your yard is fenced and that you can handle a dog like this and have what it takes to train him and get him to trust humans again so it's been a really long process in some cases. When I adopted daisy, almost two years ago, that was not so hard. She was a very easy dog to adopt. She just came in, made herself at home, got along great with Piper right away and, you know, she has never given me any concern or any reason to worry about her temperament⁶. She's been just such an easy going dog.

　　Adrienne: Yeah, she seems like a sweetheart. Both of them are.

　　Mary: Yeah, they're fun. They're fun.

1 puppy   

n.小狗，幼犬

参考例句：

• You must school your puppy to obey you.你要训练你的小狗服从你。
• Their lively puppy frisks all over the house.他们的小狗在屋里到处欢快地蹦跳。

2 puppies   

n.（常指不满一岁的）小狗(puppy的复数)；小狗，幼犬( puppy的名词复数 )；浅薄自负的年轻男子

参考例句：

• a litter of puppies 一窝小狗
• The bitch bore six puppies. 母狗生了六只小狗。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 adoption   

n.采用，采纳，通过；收养

参考例句：

• An adoption agency had sent the boys to two different families.一个收养机构把他们送给两个不同的家庭。
• The adoption of this policy would relieve them of a tremendous burden.采取这一政策会给他们解除一个巨大的负担。

4 personalities   

n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There seemed to be a degree of personalities in her remarks.她话里有些人身攻击的成分。
• Personalities are not in good taste in general conversation.在一般的谈话中诽谤他人是不高尚的。

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

6 temperament   

n.气质，性格，性情

参考例句：

• The analysis of what kind of temperament you possess is vital.分析一下你有什么样的气质是十分重要的。
• Success often depends on temperament.成功常常取决于一个人的性格。