Photo prompt

"What the heck are you doing?" Shiloh screeched as her human offered her up in front of Martie.  Unfortunately, it came out as a cross between a hiss and a meow, which did nothing but make her human laugh.

"Hey, you can talk?" Martie asked, sniffing at the cat who was dangling in front of her.  Her question sounded like a sneeze, and elicited another round of laughter from the humans in the room.

"Of course I can talk," Shiloh said.  "Can't everyone?"

"The humans can't," Martie pointed out.  "They make those weird sounds, and that laughing thing."

"Well, obviously humans can't talk," Shiloh said, a note of superiority in her tone.  "But I haven't met an animal who can't talk properly."

The human and her companions seemed to tire of the animals, since all they seemed to do was sneeze and sniff at each other.  The human set Shiloh down, and the cat sniffed at the dog once more.

"Well, I haven't had any other animals around for long enough to talk to them before," Martie told Shiloh.  "There was a squirrel in the yard once, but he just wanted to play chase, so we didn't talk much."

"I have a dog here," Shiloh told him, leading the way into the kitchen.  "He's rather irritating, though, so I wouldn't expect much conversation from him."

"Hey Shiloh!  Hey, hey!  Who's this?  I'm Grover, who're you?  Hey?  What are you doing here?"  A very high-energy, rather large dog came bounding into the kitchen, shouting at the top of his lungs.

"Shhh!" Shiloh hissed.  "The humans will come!"

Sure enough, even as Shiloh hissed her warning, the lead human came into the kitchen, shouting angry words.  The two dogs cringed, while the cat simply stared at her.  After another few shouts, the human left, apparently satisfied that the dogs were now silent.

"Who are you?" Grover asked again, more quietly.  He sniffed at Martie, who stood still while he completed his inspection.

"I'm Martie," the smaller dog replied once Grover moved away.  "I'm new."

"Do you like to play ball?" Grover asked, getting excited again.  "I love to play ball.  Come on, I'll show you my ball!  Hurry!  Come see!"  The big black dog bounded back to the other room, and Martie followed close on his heels, her toenails clicking across the floor.

Shiloh sighed.  Dogs were so uncivilized.