The story “The Mixer” by P.G. Wodehouse is a story told by the main character, an dog named Blackie. He gets bought by a man he calls the “Shy Man” because he barely speaks. This man trains Blackie to be the opposite of a watchdog, then sells him to a man that expects Blackie to be an incredible watchdog. The Shy Man then sneaks into the house and starts stuffing a bag with the new master’s items, and Blackie believes that the man needs to get over the fact that he’s shy, so Blackie fetches Fred, the caretaker’s very friendly son, as so to give the Shy Man someone to talk to and learn to be social with. The police come and take the Shy Man away for robbery, and everything is okay after that. Blackie is eager to help humans and know them, and he shows intelligence by listening to the conversations of humans and interpreting them as well as he possibly can, which is much better than many other animals. Blackie seems to confirm the claim of George Graham Vest that a dog will always be faithful to his master.
The dog, called “Blackie”, is energetic, especially when he’s excited about something. In the story, it says, “I ran five times around the lawn without stopping, and then I came back and jumped up at him,” when his best friend came to his new home. Blackie is friendly, and he wants to make sure his masters’ health is good. In the story, it says, “I suspected—what I afterwards found to be the case—that he was shy, so I jumped up at him to put him at his ease.” Blackie is also eager to know what’s going on. In the story, it says, “‘Do we live here?” I said. “Is it true we’re going to the country? Wasn’t that policeman a good sort? Don’t you like policemen? I knew lots of policemen at the public-house. Are there any other dogs here? What is there for dinner? What’s in that cupboard? When are you going to take me out for another run? May I go out and see if I can find a cat?’”
Blackie may be portrayed as “dumb” because he tries and fails to understand what’s going on around him with the humans. However, he is actually rather intelligent, understanding the words they speak and who they’re talking about when they’re talking about someone. Blackie’s perception of human sounds is similar to the perception of the parrot Marshmallow mentioned in “Animal Snoops” by Peter Christie. The bird listened in to the conversation of the people robbing his home, and caught some important information that they had failed to cover up. In the story, it says, “The thieves talked as they worked, paying no attention to the parrot, nearly motionless in its cage… ‘JJ,’ [the bird] said plainly. ‘JJ, JJ.’” Although Blackie wasn’t properly understanding what meaning the words of the people carried, what he thought they meant would have been true were it not for the fact that the Shy Man and his colleagues were using subtle code words. They were not speaking directly what they meant.
“The Mixer” the story supports George Graham Vest’s claim in his speech, “Tribute to the Dog,” that “a dog will forever stay loyal to his master.” It supports Vest’s claim because although Blackie ended up exposing the Shy Man, he didn’t bark, which was what he was taught not to do. He merely went to his new master’s son, seeking for a way to cure the Shy Man’s “shyness.” Although it exposed his master’s thievery, Blackie didn’t know that. All he wanted to do was help him become more social. In Vest’s speech, he says, “He will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world.”
The character Blackie was in fact an ugly but eager dog that wanted to help the humans around him and had a good advantage to based on his intelligence that allowed him to understand what people were saying and his extensive stamina. A friendly dog, he seemed to mostly want to help the people he was closest to: his masters, focusing mostly on the Shy Man. He tried to help the Shy Man overcome his shyness by setting up a friendship between the Shy Man and the caretaker’s friendly son. This may lead many people to believe that intelligence and kindness show themselves in many ways; not looks, nor being judged. It also may lead them to believe that something that seems stupid, such as misunderstanding what someone says, is actually much smarter than people may think, because although it was misunderstood, were it not for that fact that they were not saying exactly what they meant and using subtle codes, what Blackie thought they were saying would have been true. What else can you think of that shows itself in funny ways?
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