This wonderful girl’s name is Christina Hunger, and her dog’s name is Stella.
They live in San Diego. The girl works as a speech therapist. And you will be surprised to know that Christina taught her dog to talk to her. Not with words, of course, but with the help of a special speech output device.
It was a hard process. It took Christina and her boyfriend Jake over a year to teach their dog how to use the device.
At first, Stella (after 16 months of training) memorized 29 words, and now (after another year) she already knows 40 commands and words.
For training, Christina ordered a special board. Over time, there were more buttons on it.
Each button means a different word, such as eat, sleep, play, look, happy, angry, park, etc. If you press the button, it plays that word, so Christina and Jake can hear their dog’s message from the other rooms.
The learning process itself went like this: when Christina brought a bowl of food to Stella, she pressed the button with the word “eat / food”. When they went for a walk, they pressed “walk”, “park”, “go”, etc.
Also, Christina, at the moments when her dog was happy, pressed the “happy” button, when Stella was angry or annoyed by something – then the “angry” button, etc.
This was done in the presence of the dog and so that Stella could see which buttons were used. Gradually, Christina taught the pet to press these buttons with her paw.
Now Stella herself tells the owners when she wants to go for a walk, play, sleep, etc. Sometimes whole dialogues turn out.
For example, if someone knocks on the door, then Stella presses “look.” Or if she wants to play, she touches the appropriate button with her paw, and then presses “happy.”
The dog also understands when the owners respond to her. For example, Stella asks to go for a walk, and Christina and Jake press “ok”. At such moments, the dog is crazy with joy.
Christina notes that she will continue to teach Stella new words. This will take time. In the future, the girl plans to open courses for other dogs.