A 26-year-old speech and language therapist, Christina Hunger, decided to find a way to give her dog a voice. She built the dog a soundboard when Stella was only eight weeks old. When the buttons are pressed, they play recordings of words like “eat”, “outside”, “beach” and “happy”.
Stella, 18-months-old, already learned 29 words and a handful of phrases. She presses her paw on the buttons when she wants to say what’s on her mind. Hunger has documented Stella’s progress on Instagram.
Hunger wrote:
Stella often tells us a two-step sequence of what she wants to do. For example, some mornings, Stella gets hungry first thing, and other mornings she wants to go outside before chowing down. This morning Stella told us, ‘Come eat play’, signifying she wanted to eat first and then play.
One day, Stella was very anxious and whining at the front door, pacing back and forth. Then, the 18-month-old pup walked to the soundboard and repeatedly tapped “want”, “Jake”, and “come” and returned, waiting by the front door. Jake is Hunger’s fiancé. When Jake came home, Stella ran to the device and pressed “happy”, then rolled over for belly rubs.
Hunger said:
I’m in constant amazement and shock. Every day she says something cooler than she said the day before. I think how important dogs are to their humans. I just imagine how much deeper the bond will be.
Hunger also helps 1-2 year old children with speaking, many of whom also use devices to support their learning. “The way she uses words to communicate and the words she’s combining is really similar to a 2 year old child,” Hunger explained. Hunger’s experiment with Stella gives some sparkling hope that in the future we can communicate with our dogs more clearly.
Stella isn’t the first animal who has learned how to communicate with humans. On July 4, 1971, Koko the gorilla was brought into the world. In 1972, when Koko was only one year old, researcher Francine “Penny” Patterson began teaching her sign language. Koko amazed the world with how much she learned. Sadly, on June 19, 2018, she passed away.
