The dog in the meeting

Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.

The meeting had reached the phrase 'strategic alignment' for the third time when the dog appeared beneath the table. He belonged to the manager, who had brought him in while waiting for a repair at home. Until then he had slept in the corner. Now he placed his chin on my knee and regarded me with the directness missing from every slide on the screen.

I tried to continue taking notes. A paw followed the chin. Across the table, somebody smiled into a cup. The presenter paused as the dog investigated a bag containing biscuits, conducting the first genuinely focused inquiry of the afternoon. Nobody could persuade him that the quarterly figures were more interesting. His priorities were embarrassingly clear, and for a moment ours looked less impressive beside them.

The manager led him outside, apologising, and the presentation resumed. We did need to discuss the figures; the dog had not exposed all professional activity as pointless. But the interruption shortened our sentences. Questions became plainer, and one decision was finally written down. I cannot prove that the dog improved the meeting. I can report that after his visit we stopped using six words where two would do.

Refer to the whole of Source A. Analyse how the writer uses language to use the dog’s interruption to comment humorously on the meeting. Explain the effects of specific words, phrases and language choices, using evidence from the passage.