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VOA慢速英语2009-THIS IS AMERICA - The Truth About Cats and Dogs

时间:2009-03-13 05:57:29

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(单词翻译)

VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Barbara Klein.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember. This week on our program, we tell about pets in the United States.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:
 
Stump1 was winner of Best in Show at this year's Westminster Kennel2 Club Dog Show in New York. The Sussex spaniel is show with his handler Scott Sommer.

Earlier this month, the Westminster Kennel Club held its yearly dog show in New York City. Westminster has been awarding prizes to special show dogs for one hundred thirty-three years. Dogs are judged against a description of the perfect dog for each kind or breed. Then one is chosen as "Best in Show". This year, more than two thousand dogs of one hundred seventy breeds competed. The winner was a Sussex spaniel called Stump. Stump is ten years old—the oldest dog ever to win the championship at Westminster.

The Westminster Kennel Club was the first member of the pure breed dog registry group, The American Kennel Club. The AKC recognizes dog breeds in the United States. Every year, it develops a list of the most popular breeds. The same breed has won that honor for the past eighteen years -- the Labrador retriever. The club's Web site describes Labs as gentle, intelligent and family friendly. Yet not all Labs are the same.

VOICE TWO:

American writer John Grogan discovered this after he and his wife adopted a Labrador retriever they named Marley.
 
John Grogan's dog Marley

The dog caused Mister Grogan a lot of trouble, but also provided many stories for his newspaper articles. Later, he wrote a best-selling book, "Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog." Marley was happy and fun-loving. But he was also extremely large and difficult to control. He ate anything that he found around the house, including plastic, clothing and jewelry3. He was expelled4 from dog training school. And he had an abnormal5 fear of loud noises, especially thunderstorms. Unfortunately, the Grogans lived in Florida where many of these storms develop. Marley would attack the furniture, walls and doors until his feet bled if he was left alone in the house during a storm.

John Grogan, his wife Jenny and their three children all loved Marley even though the dog almost destroyed their home a number of times. John Grogan wrote that he briefly6 considered the possibility that his dog could be trained to be a show champion. But he soon realized that this was not to be.

READER:

"Marley had earned a place in our family. Like a quirky but beloved uncle, he was what he was. He would never be a Lassie or Benji or old Yeller; he would never reach Westminster or even the country fair. We knew that now. We accepted him for the dog he was and loved him all the more for it."

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

The American Pet Products Association carries out a National Pet Owners Study every two years. The latest one shows that seventy-one million homes in the United States last year included a pet. That is sixty-two percent of all the homes in America. The study also showed that Americans owned more than seventy-seven million dogs and more than ninety-three million cats.

The association's market research shows that Americans spent more than forty-three billion dollars on pets, pet products and pet medical care last year. And it expects that number to increase to forty-five billion dollars by the end of this year, even with the current economic downturn.

Bob Vetere is president of the American Pet Products Association. He says the organization has seen fewer sales of pet supplies recently. But he says pet owners are spending their money on other things like medical services. He says people want to keep their pets healthy longer. And he says that special treatments developed in the past ten years are more costly7 than before.

Mister Vetere also says Americans are working longer hours and hiring people to care for their pets during the day. And, he says Americans are taking their pets with them on trips. That is easier to do these days because more hotels and vacation areas permit pets. For example, the Web site petswelcome.com lists more than seventeen thousand pet friendly hotels, campgrounds and beaches in the United States.

VOICE TWO:
 
Boston terrier puppies8 that were surrendered to the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in January

However, the economic downturn is creating problems for some pet owners. The Humane9 Society says that more people are leaving pets at animal shelters. This is because they have lost their homes and can no longer care for their animals. The group provides money for shelters and rescue organizations to help them care for homeless dogs and cats.

Humane Society official Nancy Peterson says groups are also helping10 pet owners pay for pet food. And they are placing animals in temporary homes until their owners can take them back.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

The central part of the United States suffered its own economic crisis11 in the nineteen eighties. The price of farm land dropped and banks no longer provided the credit farmers needed. Unemployment reduced the population. The number of people in the small town of Spencer, Iowa, for example, dropped from eleven thousand to eight thousand in just a few years.

The Spencer public library worked to help people in the town find jobs. It created a list of jobs and offered books on job skills and training. It also set up a computer so people could research job openings and write applications.

VOICE TWO:
 
Dewey Readmore Books

One cold January morning in nineteen eighty-eight, library workers found a small, almost frozen12 kitten in the book drop. A book drop is the small metal door in the wall of the building where people can return books when the library is closed. No one knows who put the kitten there or why. But it turned out to be lucky for both the kitten and the town.

The library held a contest to name the cat. The winning name was Dewey Readmore Books. Library officials agreed to permit him to live in the building. Dewey loved to keep people company while they chose books or used the library computer. Soon, Dewey's presence began attracting families and school groups to the library.

The local newspaper wrote about the new library cat. His story spread across the nation. Dewey began receiving letters from people in other countries. And a film crew from Japan arrived to include him in a movie about cats.

Head librarian Vicki Myron was Dewey's main caretaker. Last year, she published the best-selling book "Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World." Here she gives readers an idea of how much the cat meant to her town.

READER:

"How much of an impact can an animal have? How many lives can one cat touch? How is it possible for an abandoned kitten to transform a small library into a meeting place and tourist attraction, inspire a classic American town, bring together an entire region and eventually become famous around the world? You can't even begin to answer those questions until you hear the story of Dewey Readmore Books, the beloved library cat of Spencer, Iowa."

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Pets are important in American homes, and that includes the White House. President Obama has promised his two daughters a dog.

When it arrives, the new family member will join a long list of pets that have lived in the White House. Some presidents kept rather unusual animals. For example, President Benjamin Harrison's son had a pet goat. President Calvin Coolidge had raccoons.
 
Franklin Roosevelt with his Scottish terrier Fala in 1942

President Theodore Roosevelt's family had a pony13, a sheep, a bird, guinea pigs, dogs, cats, rats and a snake. President John Kennedy's daughter Caroline had a pony named Macaroni. The Kennedys also had hamsters, dogs, birds, and cats.

Many presidents seem to have taken the advice of President Harry14 Truman who said: "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog."

Perhaps the most famous presidential dog was President Franklin Roosevelt's Scottish terrier, Fala. Mister Roosevelt took him just about everywhere. In nineteen forty-three, Fala appeared in a short movie about life in Washington during World War Two. A statue of Fala is part of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C.

VOICE TWO:

Fala may have been the first White House pet to be a media star, but he was not the last. In nineteen ninety, first lady Barbara Bush's Springer spaniel Millie told about her life in the White House in "Millie's Book." And President George W. Bush's Scottie dog Barney had his own Web cam series on the White House Web site.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Our program was written by Nancy Steinbach and produced by Caty Weaver15. I'm Barbara Klein.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember. You can find transcripts16, MP3s and podcasts of our programs at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 stump hGbzY     
n.残株,烟蒂,讲演台;v.砍断,蹒跚而走
参考例句:
  • He went on the stump in his home state.他到故乡所在的州去发表演说。
  • He used the stump as a table.他把树桩用作桌子。
2 kennel axay6     
n.狗舍,狗窝
参考例句:
  • Sporting dogs should be kept out of doors in a kennel.猎狗应该养在户外的狗窝中。
  • Rescued dogs are housed in a standard kennel block.获救的狗被装在一个标准的犬舍里。
3 jewelry 0auz1     
n.(jewllery)(总称)珠宝
参考例句:
  • The burglars walked off with all my jewelry.夜盗偷走了我的全部珠宝。
  • Jewelry and lace are mostly feminine belongings.珠宝和花边多数是女性用品。
4 expelled 7a860966115182402ed06375cf0a22af     
驱逐( expel的过去式和过去分词 ); 赶走; 把…除名; 排出
参考例句:
  • She was expelled from school at 15. 她15岁时被学校开除了。
  • After the outbreak of fighting,all foreign journalists were expelled. 战斗开始后,所有的外国记者都被驱逐出境。
5 abnormal UIvy2     
adj.反常的,不正常的,不规则的
参考例句:
  • This warm weather is abnormal for February.二月里这种温暖的天气不太正常。
  • That is simply abnormal.那简直是反常的。
6 briefly 9Styo     
adv.简单地,简短地
参考例句:
  • I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
  • He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。
7 costly 7zXxh     
adj.昂贵的,价值高的,豪华的
参考例句:
  • It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
  • This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用,左不过贵了些。
8 puppies 679f34ba1ec7d7ee1f1718acc24f53d7     
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》
9 humane Uymy0     
adj.人道的,富有同情心的
参考例句:
  • Is it humane to kill animals for food?宰杀牲畜来吃合乎人道吗?
  • Their aim is for a more just and humane society.他们的目标是建立一个更加公正、博爱的社会。
10 helping 2rGzDc     
n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的
参考例句:
  • The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
  • By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。
11 crisis pzJxT     
n.危机,危急关头,决定性时刻,关键阶段
参考例句:
  • He had proved that he could be relied on in a crisis.他已表明,在紧要关头他是可以信赖的。
  • The topic today centers about the crisis in the Middle East.今天课题的中心是中东危机。
12 frozen 2sVz6q     
adj.冻结的,冰冻的
参考例句:
  • He was frozen to death on a snowing night.在一个风雪的晚上,他被冻死了。
  • The weather is cold and the ground is frozen.天寒地冻。
13 pony Au5yJ     
adj.小型的;n.小马
参考例句:
  • His father gave him a pony as a Christmas present.他父亲给了他一匹小马驹作为圣诞礼物。
  • They made him pony up the money he owed.他们逼他还债。
14 harry heBxS     
vt.掠夺,蹂躏,使苦恼
参考例句:
  • Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天,人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
  • Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。
15 weaver LgWwd     
n.织布工;编织者
参考例句:
  • She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快,而且布的质量很好。
  • The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。
16 transcripts 525c0b10bb61e5ddfdd47d7faa92db26     
n.抄本( transcript的名词复数 );转写本;文字本;副本
参考例句:
  • Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样,都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
  • You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书,你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句

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