Pet parents learn a lot from their dogs and in return also teach them a few things. No, we’re not talking about sitting down and shaking hands. One Harry Potter fan got creative and taught her mini Dachshund how to respond to magic spells. And one man taught his dog how to supervise while his daughter completed her homework!
According to HuffPost, a US-based speech-language pathologist named Christina Hunger taught her dog Stella how to communicate effectively. She achieved this by fashioning a panel of buttons where each buzzer denoted a particular word.
The panel has 29 words that can be strung together to form sentences. Christina reveals that she started teaching her Catahoula/Blue Heeler mix ever since she was 2 months old. The Indian Express quoted her saying,
“We thought this button would be a good size for Stella to activate with her paw. Every time we said ‘outside’ to Stella, we modeled the use of the button by pushing it with our foot.”
“Every time we took Stella outside, we pushed ‘outside’ button before opening the door. After a few weeks of modeling, Stella showed us she was aware of what was happening. When I would ask ‘outside’, Stella wanted to go outside and she began looking down at the button, looking up at me, and barking.”
This technique is known as Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) and the results are amazing. Christina reveals her pet’s favourite word by saying, “She definitely says ‘outside’ the most. She absolutely loves being outside.”
Stella now uses both her paws to “talk” to her hooman, presses “mad” several times when she’s agitated, “happy” when she’s in a good mood and “help” when one of the buttons stop working. She sure is one intelligent pupper, don’t you think?