Talking dogs?
Some days it really amazes me just how well Fay (my 1 y/o dog) understands language. Sure, she's a smart breed, but the way that goes beyond recognising the words I've been teaching her specifically, indicator words like 'outside' or 'sit' or 'weave' is something I'd never really imagined.
Surely everyone has seen a 'talking dog' at least once now, and while I never believed dogs would be able to hold full on conversations, I figured conditioning a dog to hit the 'outside' button when they want to go outside made sense. So I got Fay some buttons that could record some words and were easy for her to press.
At first, she dragged them all around the house, even reprogramming the noise to be just static, so I took them away. Recently, I've been reintroducing them, and she's taken to them quite well.
One of her buttons says 'help' and right now that's mostly used when her toy is in a place she can't reach. Sometimes it's difficult to figure out though, because she has also used that button to immediately run towards the door to go outside, or just when she's bored. A lot of it is still guessing.
Today, however, she hit it and came to me. I went through my regular questions, like "Help where?", which sometimes leads to her walking to a certain tool I use to fish things from underneath the couch, and "outside", to which she usually responds by barking and walking towards the door if that's what she wants.
This time, she sat down next to me, quietly (quiet? Fay? Yeah, apparently it happens XD). When I asked her again "Help where?" she licked her lips and swallowed hard. That prompted me to check her water bowl and guess what? It was empty!
So I filled it and walked back inside, where she still sat waiting. "Water," I said, with the gesture that we use to indicate water (yep, I use sign language for my doggo! Along with vocal cues. Works wonderfully!) "Water is in the kitchen (another indicator word!). Go look."
She went, drank water, came back, and gave me big cuddles. I'm so proud! Is it legit 'talking'? Nah. Am I 100% certain she fully comprehended that conversation? Not really. But we are figuring out our way to communicate and I think that's pretty awesome :3
