@misseden: It’s possible – I talked to my dogs today! Did you talk to yours? 🙂 Or do you mean will it be possible to have them talk back to us?
We are learning so much at the moment about these amazing animals that have shared our homes for thousands of years – one dog who has taught us lots about dogs and their understanding of our language is Chaser. She’s a border collie and she knows the names of over 1200 objects (toys!). You can ask her to go to her ROOM of toys and get ‘rainbow’ – and she will. Amazing! She’s even desmontrated she understands syntax/grammar (so she knows the difference between ‘take frisbee to ball’ and ‘take ball to frisbee’) – Astounding! My friend and Do You Believe in Dog? colleague, canine scientist in New York – Julie Hecht – met Chaser just a few weeks ago. You can read more about Julie meeting Chaser (and more about her mad language skills) here: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/dog-spies/2013/07/30/how-to-teach-language-to-dogs/
As for dogs talking back to us? They already do! It’s a bit like learning any new language – you need to study it and get lots of practice, but if you start REALLY looking at dogs – their ear position, tail carriage, eyes, lips, body postures, angles, way they move towards or away from things, etc – you’ll see they’re already telling us so, so much! They are experts at reading us people and our body language, but I reckon most people could put in a bit more effort into ‘listening’ to what their dogs are telling them!
blue11fudge
@misseden: It’s possible – I talked to my dogs today! Did you talk to yours? 🙂 Or do you mean will it be possible to have them talk back to us?
We are learning so much at the moment about these amazing animals that have shared our homes for thousands of years – one dog who has taught us lots about dogs and their understanding of our language is Chaser. She’s a border collie and she knows the names of over 1200 objects (toys!). You can ask her to go to her ROOM of toys and get ‘rainbow’ – and she will. Amazing! She’s even desmontrated she understands syntax/grammar (so she knows the difference between ‘take frisbee to ball’ and ‘take ball to frisbee’) – Astounding! My friend and Do You Believe in Dog? colleague, canine scientist in New York – Julie Hecht – met Chaser just a few weeks ago. You can read more about Julie meeting Chaser (and more about her mad language skills) here: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/dog-spies/2013/07/30/how-to-teach-language-to-dogs/
As for dogs talking back to us? They already do! It’s a bit like learning any new language – you need to study it and get lots of practice, but if you start REALLY looking at dogs – their ear position, tail carriage, eyes, lips, body postures, angles, way they move towards or away from things, etc – you’ll see they’re already telling us so, so much! They are experts at reading us people and our body language, but I reckon most people could put in a bit more effort into ‘listening’ to what their dogs are telling them!
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