Questions for a conversational paragraph "Usually people who are dog breeders have to wake up early in the morning because dogs generally tend to wake up very early. My dogs in the past, *they've alwa

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Questions for a conversational paragraph "Usually people who are dog breeders have to wake up early in the morning because dogs generally tend to wake up very early. My dogs in the past, *they've always gotten used to my *late schedule. But when you first get them from a breeder, they are still on puppy mode. So they wake up very early and you have to take them out often. So I 'm thingking that my sort of *schedule of diligence is going to have to continue when my new puppy comes." 1) While mentioning his dogs from the past, why is this speaker using the present perfect tense? The speaker doesn't have them any longer and he's now waing for a new puppy to come from a breeder. 2) What does 'schedule of diligence' mean here? I thought that it might be 'being early' in contrast to 'his late schedule' (mentioned in the earlier lines), but in my dictionary, the word diligent means working hard carefully and thoroughly.

Mar 29, 2015 3:52 PM

Answers · 25

1 The whole quotation uses the present tense. So the writer places the past dogs in the present (perfect) tense to maintain the present tense. It is similar to saying: Every dog I've ever had has gotten used to my late schedule. (He is writing as if his dogs in the past were still in present time.) 2 It's not clear. What is clear is that either the puppies or the writer will have to adjust to a new schedule--at least temporarily.

March 29, 2015

People who are actual dog breeders get up early. The author is not a dog breeder, and therefore gets up late. The dogs the author has owned in the past have all started out getting up early but gradually adjust to the author's way of waking up late. However, at the start, they always wake up early. Due to the puppies waking up early, the owner of puppies also have to wake up early in order to let the dogs outside so they don't pee and poop inside your house. In the case of the author's previous dogs he had to wake early so he changed his sleeping pattern because of the dogs. This will happen again with the next dog, thus "continuing his schedule of due diligence" in letting the puppies outside early in the morning. This is my translation of the author's English into my English.

March 29, 2015

Keeping dogs is something he did in the past and that he intends to do again. He is a dog breeder. He has bred many dogs in the past, and based on that experience he knows that dogs can become accustomed to sleeping in late. It is really standard usage of the present perfect. We often use it to refer to past experiences. I can see why the "schedule of dilegence" part was confusing. I have no idea what he meant by that either. Honestly the whole thing is pretty badly written IMHO.

March 29, 2015