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‘But animals don’t always speak with their mouths,’ said the parrot in a high voice,
raising her eyebrows. ‘They talk with their ears, with their feet, with their tails—with

everything. Sometimes they don’t want to make a noise. Do you see now the way he’s
twitching up one side of his nose?’

‘What’s that mean?’ asked the Doctor.

‘That means, “Can’t you see that it has stopped raining?”‘ Polynesia answered. ‘He is
asking you a question. Dogs nearly always use their noses for asking questions.’ After

a while, with the parrot’s help, the Doctor got to learn the language of the animals
so well that he could talk to them himself and
understand everything they said. Then he gave up
being a people’s doctor altogether.

As soon as the Cat’s-meat-Man had told every
one that John Dolittle was going to become
an animal-doctor, old ladies began to bring
him their pet pugs and poodles who had

eaten too much cake; and farmers came
many miles to show him sick cows
and sheep.

One day a plow-horse was brought to him;

and the poor thing was terribly glad to find You must have seen
a man who could talk in horse-language. pet owners talking to

‘You know, Doctor,’ said the horse, ‘that vet over the hill their pets. Have you ever
Let’s connect
knows nothing at all. He has been treating me six weeks tried to talk with an animal
using gestures or noises?
now—for spavins. What I need is spectacles. I am going

blind in one eye. There’s no reason why horses shouldn’t wear glasses, the same as
people. But that stupid man over the hill never even looked at my eyes. He kept on
giving me big pills. I tried to tell him; but he couldn’t understand a word of horse-
language. What I need is spectacles.’

‘Of course—of course,’ said the Doctor. ‘I’ll get you some at once.’

‘I would like a pair like yours,’ said the horse—‘only green. They’ll keep the sun out of
my eyes while I’m plowing the Fifty-Acre Field.’

‘Certainly,’ said the Doctor. ‘Green ones you shall have.’ twitching: a sudden, quick
movement or jerk
‘You know, the trouble is, Sir,’ said the plow-horse as the spavins: a medical condition

Doctor opened the front door to let him out—‘the trouble is in horses characterised by
swelling and hardening of
that anybody thinks he can doctor animals—just because the the hock joint

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