The Internet's Talking Pets

Anyone who’s ever said the word “treat” or “walk” around their dog knows that our pets can understand us - at least when it comes to certain words! It’s long been clear that dogs and cats have their own ways of communicating with us, from different types of barks and body language to responding to their names and verbal commands.

But what if we could go further? What if animals could really talk? A number of real life Eliza Thornberrys are working to answer this exact question, using the power of the internet and simple voice-recording technology to explore the capacity that dogs and cats may have to use language just like humans do.

Talking Animals In Previous Decades

While talking pets may have captured audiences on Instagram and YouTube, previous decades have had their fair share of animals who learned to communicate. Koko the Gorilla learned sign language from researcher Francine Patterson and eventually learned thousands of words. Koko was able to tease, joke, and describe abstract concepts with her sign language.

Another famous talking animal is Alex the African Grey Parrot. Because parrots are physically able to make the sounds found in human speech, they are the only animals able to “talk” without the use of sign language or other assistive methods. Alex worked with researcher Dr. Irene Pepperberg to learn over 100 words. He was also able to understand mathematical concepts and could read simple words.

Stella

Stella was the internet’s first “talking dog.” As a puppy, she had the fortune to be adopted by Christina Hunger, who is a speech-language pathologist. Since Christina was already very skilled in teaching humans how to use Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), she wondered if she could do the same with her dog. And it worked! It turned out that Stella the dog was able to use and understand the same technologies and techniques that help people communicate.

To “talk,” Stella uses a board with buttons that she presses using her paws. When she presses a button, it plays a recording of an individual word or short phrase. She currently has over 45 buttons in her vocabulary, and can combine them into unique phrases that help her get her point across. She can express how she’s feeling, ask for what she wants, and describe things she is seeing.

What Is AAC?

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) is a wide ranging set of therapies and technologies that allow people to communicate when they cannot speak verbally. Some can be as low-tech as using picture cards, pen and paper, or sign language. Other methods of AAC use touch screens, recorded voices, and eye tracking to help people communicate. If you’ve ever heard physicist Stephen Hawking speak with a computerized voice, you’ve seen AAC in action!

Bunny

Bunny is another “talking dog” whose journey was inspired by Stella’s story. Bunny’s owner saw Stella’s instagram and wanted to try the same thing with her dog, so she started Bunny with her own talking buttons. Stella was no longer the only dog using AAC to communicate. Bunny’s buttons include sounds as well was words, such as a “hmm?” sound that she can use to indicate that she’s asking a question.

One thing that’s fascinating about Bunny is her ability to combine her limited vocabulary to create new terms - for example, she uses the words “poop” and “play” together to mean “fart.” This tells us a few things about canine cognition - one, that they’re able to get creative and expand their linguistic capacities beyond the initial tools that we give them; and two, that they find bathroom humor just as funny as we do!

Billi

Billi is the first non-canine animal to start using AAC buttons to communicate. Since cats have different brains than dogs, her process has been different than Stella’s and Bunny’s - she tends to be more demanding and express that she is “mad” more often, and she has a narrower vocabulary. Still, she’s clearly able to understand the purpose of the buttons and use them to speak her little cat mind!

Are They Really Talking?

Some people have raised questions about whether these animals’ use of AAC is comparable to a human using language to communicate. This remains an open area of research, with a number of scientists working to more deeply understand how dogs and other animals can communicate.

It’s possible that these animals aren’t fully grasping the complexity of language, and are instead using a different process called “operant conditioning” to simply associate different buttons with different things. Does Bunny just know that pressing the “outside” button gets her owner to open the door and let her onto the beach, or does she truly understand that she’s using a word to express the idea of “outside?”

We don’t know - at least, not yet! This is an early area of research, and it’s easy to see how different people draw different conclusions after seeing Bunny’s videos. Still, it’s more of a voice than dogs and cats have ever had before.

Can I Try It?

If you’re interested in teaching your own pet to use AAC, you’re in luck! FluentPet is a company that sells buttons and boards that allow you to create and organize a set of words for your pet.

But it’s a bit more complicated than just giving Fido some buttons, so while you don’t need to be a fully credentialed speech and language pathologist, you will need to study up on the best ways to teach your pet how to “talk.”

For example, one common beginner’s mistake is using a “treat,” “food,” or “eat” button to start out. It seems logical, since it’s often a word that your pet already knows, and something that’s easy to train. But since most animals are very motivated by food, they may get too excited by this and lose interest in learning any other words. Or, they may think that simply pressing their buttons gets them a treat, without understanding that different buttons mean different things.

To get started on teaching your pet to communicate using AAC, Check out They Can Talk, an organization with resources and guides for introducing AAC to pets.