Dogs are pretty awesome when it comes to understanding what we want them to do. Teach them the basic commands and you can get them to sit, stay, and extend their paws. But what about them? They deserve to be understood, too.

26-year-old Christina Hunger came up with a clever way to teach her dog how to “talk” to humans.

Christina lives with her 18-month-old dog Stella in San Diego. When she first got her a year ago, she thought about how she can make her use a device similar to the Augmentative and Alternative Communication system.

This system involves devices that are frequently used to help non-verbal children express their ideas by pressing icons. She started teaching Stella when she was just 8 weeks old.

Christina and her fiance Jake started by programming a single button on a plain speech soundboard.

Pressing that button will play the word “outside”. Each time they took the dog out, they make sure to push the button before opening the door. After a couple of weeks, Stella began showing awareness of what’s happening.

Whenever Christina would ask “Stella, want to go outside?”, the dog would start looking down at the single button. Then, she’d look at her human and bark.

Soon, the Catahoula/Blue Heeler mix started pressing the button on her own whenever she wanted to go outside.

After the “outside” button, the pair didn’t have any problems teaching Stella about the other buttons programmed with what they frequently used with the dog or things she might want to communicate with them.

They were shocked by the results.

According to Stella:

“If Jake and I were distracted, Stella began saying ‘play’ repeatedly until we threw her toy or engaged in tug of war. Stella would walk to her water bowl, notice it was empty and say ‘water.’ If we had finished dinner and didn’t mention going for a walk yet, Stella would say ‘walk’ multiple times while staring at us. If her toy was stuck under the couch, she would say ‘help’ and stand right where she needed Jake or I to look. When our friends were putting their jackets on or were standing by the door, she would say ‘bye’ to them. Jake and I were simply amazed.”

Now, Stella is capable of putting words together.

She can provide commentary or put together words for more complex communication. At times, she even reprimands Christina and Jake.

“One afternoon, shortly after the Daylight Savings time change, Stella said, ‘eat’ repeatedly at about 3:00 PM. When Jake and I did not feed her dinner this early she said, ‘love you no’ and walked into the other room.”- she shared.

Dogs have their own way of communicating their needs. They bark, growl or moan whenever they want us to understand them. Unfortunately, we can’t always know what they are trying to tell us.

Teaching dogs how to communicate using Christina’s technique can bring us closer to our pets. Moreover, it’s one step closer to ensuring that their needs are met.

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Source: YouTube, HuffPost