Speech pathologist teaches her puppy to “talk” using soundboard – now the dog is using phrases
If your dog could talk, what do you think it would say? I love you? Feed me? Let me out?
A speech pathologist, Christina Hunger, MA, CCC-SLP, is making headlines for teaching her dog Stella to “talk.” And, indeed, Stella is full of love, not full enough of food, and usually wants to go out.
Hunger, 26, has taught the dog to do more than communicate the things we already know she wants, however. Her dog, Stella knows 29 words and can even form phrases!
The 18-month-old Catahoula/Blue Heeler mix puppy is using a special version of an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) system, the same type of device speech pathologists use to help non-verbal children communicate. By pressing one of the thousands of icons representing different words, those who don’t speak can express what they’re thinking. The machine “says” the word out loud, allowing them to “speak.”
It’s not something you’d expect a dog to be able to use, but Stella is turning heads with her talents. She can now “talk” by stepping on a few dozen buttons she’s been taught to use.
Her training began when she was just 8 weeks old.
In a blog post, Hunger explained how it works. We all have multiple ways of communicating – verbal speech, gestures, facial expressions, writing, etc. So being able to speak is not necessary for communication.
Dogs have already proven that they don’t need speech – they bark, whine, growl, jump, sigh, etc. to express their feelings and desires.
So Hunger asked herself: “what would happen if we gave dogs a way to access the words we say to them on a daily basis?” After all, dogs can understand the verbal language of humans. All you need to do is say the word “out” to see that.
But could they communicate back to us using those same words?
Hunger and her fiancee Jake started their project to train Stella to “talk” by making a button for her favorite word: outside. When Stella steps on the button, it plays the word “outside.” To get her to use it, they would let her out each time they hit the button or any time she stepped on it.
Eventually, Stella began to associate the word and the action with the button – and she learned that she could request to go out by stepping on her “outside” button.
“After a few weeks of modeling, Stella showed us she was aware of what was happening. When I would ask ‘Outside? Stella, want to go outside?’ she began looking down at the button, looking up at me, and barking.”
Easy enough, right? After all, some dogs will bring over their leash to give you the hint, so substituting a button might not seem like that big a deal.
But things got complex when they started adding other buttons: eat, water, play, walk, no, come, help, bye, and love you.
“Instead of rewarding Stella with a treat for using a button, we responded to her communication by acknowledging her message and responding accordingly. Stella’s voice and opinions matter just as our own do.”
Eventually, Stella could use the buttons without prodding from her humans.
“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.”
Ok, now we’re charmed AND impressed!
Eventually, Stella got so good at using her buttons, she used them to remark on the world around her! For example, she would press the “water” button when Hunger was watering plants. She didn’t want water because her bowl was full – she was simply pointing out that she knew what her mom was doing.
But that’s not even the most remarkable part. What’s truly extraordinary is the dog’s ability to form phrases with her buttons!
“Stella would say ‘no eat’ or ‘eat no’ if we took too long to feed her, ‘walk no’ if we didn’t take her for a walk, ‘eat play’ to request her toy filled with food, ‘help come’ when she needed help in another room.”
And she didn’t always have nice things to say:
“When Jake and I did not feed her dinner this early she said, “love you no” and walked into the other room.”
Ouch. (We shudder to think what our cats have to say.)
We’ve long compared the cognitive skills of intelligent dogs to human toddlers (of course, the difference is that your toddler will get smarter while your dog is maxing out at that level). The average dog knows around 165 words.
So the experiment continues. Hunger intends to find out just how sophisticated dog communication can get and she’s promised updates on Stella’s journey on both her website and Instagram account.
Be sure to scroll down below to see more footage of Stella’s impressive skills.
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
Source: Hunger for Words, @hunger4words via Instagram, CNN via YouTube
(h/t Upworthy)