A nursery school teacher was delivering a school bus full of kids home one day when a fire truck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a Dalmatian dog. The children started discussing what the dog's duties might be.

"They use him to keep crowds back," said one youngster.

"No," said another, "he's just for good luck."

A third child concluded. "No silly, they use the dogs to find the fire hydrant!"

有一天，一位護(hù)理學(xué)校的老師老師正駕駛著坐滿孩子的校車(chē)，送他們回家，這時(shí)候，一輛消防車(chē)呼嘯而過(guò)。在消防車(chē)的前座上有一只達(dá)爾馬提亞犬。于是孩子們開(kāi)始討論這只狗的職責(zé)可能是什么。
“他們用它來(lái)讓人們離得遠(yuǎn)一點(diǎn)，”一個(gè)小孩說(shuō)到。
“不，”另一個(gè)說(shuō)，“它是用來(lái)求好運(yùn)的?！?/div>
這時(shí)候第三個(gè)小孩說(shuō)?！皠e傻了，其實(shí)他們是想用用這狗來(lái)找消防栓的?！?/div>
生詞：
zoom past：呼嘯而過(guò)
fire hydrant：消防栓

那為什么會(huì)有只小狗坐在消防車(chē)上呢？

這是因?yàn)檫h(yuǎn)在十八世紀(jì)時(shí)代，馬車(chē)用作消防車(chē)，投入滅火戰(zhàn)斗。狗是馬的天然朋友，當(dāng)時(shí)的消防隊(duì)員相信，馬有時(shí)看到火災(zāi)會(huì)驚慌失措，而往往是狗能使它們安靜下來(lái)。因此，消防協(xié)會(huì)把狗作為自己吉祥物的標(biāo)記就不無(wú)道理了。