Christina Hunger works as a speech-language pathologist, but it turns out that she doesn’t only help out humans with her expertise. The 26-year-old woman from San Diego recently went viral on the internet because she managed to lend a voice to the voiceless: she provided her own dog with a soundboard and taught her how to communicate with words.

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It’s worth noting that Christina actually works with small children up to two years old, whose speech clearly isn’t well-developed or sophisticated yet. They also often use some adaptive devices to let the rest of the world know what they want to say.

“If a child isn’t able to functionally communicate with verbal speech, I find and introduce an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) system. This is often a device containing thousands of icons, each representing a different word. When the child presses an icon, the device says that word out loud. AAC allows the child to say words, form sentences, and experience the power of language. Pretty incredible, right?” she wrote on her blog, Hunger for Words.

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That’s when it struck Christina – if something like that would work on the children she helps, would it help for her dog as well?

An absolutely adorable two-month-old puppy, Stella, was the guinea pig, so to speak, of Christina’s ambitious and interesting experiment. The Catahoula/Blue Heeler was given an improvised soundboard – a large piece of cardboard with a bunch of buttons placed it on. Each button represents a word, and by pressing the buttons, Stella could create sentences and communicate more clearly with her owner.

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It’s something that sounds pretty ridiculous when you first hear it, but Christina gave it some additional thought and really wanted to figure out if that would work.

“If dogs can understand words we say to them, shouldn’t they be able to say words to us? Can dogs use AAC to communicate with humans?” Christina wondered.

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Of course, everything started out quite simple. Christina and her soon-to-be husband Jake started building the board with a single button. Underneath the button were the words “outside”, and the two of them pressed that button every time they said the word “outside” or opened the door to go outside. Stella became conditioned after just a few weeks. Whenever she wanted to go outside, she looked at and stepped on the button.

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It worked wonderfully, and the couple quickly added additional buttons so that Stella could better communicate her wishes and needs.

More buttons were added such as “water”, “eat”, “walk”, “play”, “help”, “no”, “bye”, “love you.” Surprisingly enough, Stella seemed to get a grasp of it all, fairly quick and without much effort.

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“Every day I spent time using Stella’s buttons to talk with her and teach her words just as I would in speech therapy sessions with children. 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,” she continued.

Sometimes, these ‘conversations’ are just too cute. Stella presses the “bye” button every time a guest puts on their jacket, for example.

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And it’s not just as simple as pressing one button: Stella can actually make sentences by combining up to five buttons/words at a time. The four-footer now knows 29 different words and how to use them.

“The way she uses words to communicate and the words she’s combining is really similar to a 2-year-old child. “I think how important dogs are to their humans,” Christina concluded. “I just imagine how much deeper the bond will be.”

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Source: hunger4words (Instagram), Upworthy