The first domestication of wolves was about 29,000 years ago. Since then we have had these mammals as our companions ever since. The language of dog can go up to a deep gruff bark… to another bark. Dogs are a bit like infants, they can not distinguish similar words, such as, dig, or dog, or sit, and set. Studies have shown that dogs cannot distinguish two words that have only one set of different speech sounds. Their vocal cord development is not as advanced as those of humans. But does this mean we are superior to them? Not necessarily. Just because we cannot speak the language of animals, does not mean that we are superior to them. Many humans think that animals are dumb because they cannot communicate back with us in the language we understand, which is almost like bragging to a mute human about how much you know when really, although they cant say it, they could be significantly smarter than you. So it is foolish to believe that just because we can communicate to people in a language that animals can process, but cant repeat back to us, that we are far superior to them. Take birds for example. Us humans have an understanding on when summer, winter, spring and fall come because of routinely changes. Yes, weather forecasters can predict the weather a week into the future, but these creatures are able to know, months before us humans when winter will arrive. We know that winter is here when it gets cold outside. If that was the case for birds, they would have to migrate in the freezing cold, most of them would not make it. Although we cannot directly communicate with dogs, we use their body movements and signals to guess what the dog needs. A woman named Christina Hunger, children’s speech therapist combined children speech devices, with buttons for her own dog. Dogs try their absolute hardest to try and get what they want by using gestures and signals. The image below is a picture of the world’s first talking dog. Being a children’s speech therapist, Hunger has experienced the process of, first having a speech device, to being able to use the device AND communicate with others using the device. Hunger has been able to teach her dog over 42 communicable words and can now speak in four word phrases. She had created a blog called Hunger for Words which then attracted the “People” magazine editor which then ended up attracting CNN reporters and ABC reporters. If you would like to learn about the process/steps Christina Hunger took to teach Stella how to speak, she has a book called, “How Stella Learned to Talk.” You can find this book at your local library.
