Scientists Are Figuring Out How To Talk To Animals With AI

[@williamwebb2042]

For reasons I can not recall, a coworker, named Dan, brought his cockatoo to work with him. Mid-day Dan unexpectedly had to go visit a vendor. He left the cockatoo, named Cory, with me. The bird sat on my conference table as far from me as possible. He looked bored. I asked him if I could pick him up and he hissed at me. That was a NO. I said, okay Cory if you are bored you can play with my pencils. He proceeded to take pencils out of my pencil holder and roll them around and arrange them in various ways. Skipping three or four years ahead Dan was freelancing and I was working for a different company. I needed some engineering work done that was within Dan's expertise, so I stopped by his house to discuss the job. He was sitting at his workstation with Cory when I arrived. Cory looked at me for a moment, collected some pencils and set them down in front of me. He could not have communicated, "I remember you" more plainly. I have never felt more in touch with a non-human sentient being than sitting with that bird.

[@anandsharma7430]

Shaka, when the walls fell, er, box of pencils fell. 😀

[@ace2627]

I think Cory knew you were going to be bored when you came and it was a plea for help... lol

[@dannydetonator]

I'm in metal engineering too and this is it, i'm getting myself a cockatoo!

[@HH-ru4bj]

​@@dannydetonator Check the lifespan. I'm not googling it but some of these smart birds can out live you.

[@nettewilson5926]

❤❤❤

[@DawnDavidson]

My own cat, Alex, at the very end of his life, absolutely communicated with me very directly. He was ill, had cancer we couldn’t afford to diagnose or treat, and hadn’t been hopping on my lap because he hurt too much. But the day before he died, he came over to me, got up next to me, put his paw on my cheek, purred, and we just looked at each other for a bit. In retrospect, he was clearly saying goodbye. I was the one who didn’t understand him, not the other way around.

[@ynraider]

Feral cats we fed as teens, they ALL said goodbyes like this before disappearing forever...

[@fractalelf7760]

This brought a tear to my eye….

[@CaesarRobles-e9y]

Puts paw on your cheek... "You you were always such an A$$-Whole...but you were my favorite A$$-whole." 😸😿 You: "Aww, I'll miss you too Alex."

[@chefscorner7063]

That's very sweet. I'm not looking forward to the day I have to say goodbye to my little fur babies. 🙏✌️

[@NoReply28]

He was trying to steal your life force for himself but failed.

[@redpanda9367]

When I was a kid I worked at my local pet shop after school and thy had a scarlet macaw named Buddy who lived in the basement because he hated everyone. Every day for months all I did was talk to him and bring him dried fruit until one day he let me hand feed him and not long after that he was sitting on my arm as I cleaned other cages. I was maybe 12-13, I’m 35 now and I still think about him all the time…not adopting him is one of my big life regrets.

[@Itchiwat]

in captivity scarlet macaws can live up to 75 years. Buddy might still be alive. And after reading first comment, he remembers you too.

[@aceholepictures]

Go to him!

[@WishfulCreation]

That is sweet and sad. You may have been his only friend. It would be really cool to hear that he's still alive and you reunited with him.

[@redpanda9367]

@@WishfulCreation I would love that very much!!

[@redpanda9367]

@@Itchiwat I might have to put a trip back home together and go find him!

[@gormauslander]

"When animals talk, maybe we'll treat them better" I can tell you right now about a particular set of animals that talk, that did not treat others nicely just because they talk too

[@snow8725]

But some of us do. And the more people who do, the more discussions are going to be opening up about it, giving us the opportunity to re-evaluate our actions.

[@JasonBunston]

What makes thing complicated is that those animals we may be thinking of tend to treat each other poorly over ideas and concepts of how to run the world. Imagine what’s coming once the higher order animals with structured language start asking their humans for direct help. Also what to do when they start asking for us to knock off their neighbours? Every being with a brain eventually practices politics.

[@gormauslander]

@DanteS-119 It was not politicians that put Ota Benga in the Bronx zoo in 1906.

[@snow8725]

@@JasonBunston We enlighten them to the ways of peace and prosperity.

[@danisaksson3214]

That's actually the exception. For the most part, we do treat others good because they can talk. So your point is null.

[@michaelmorrison6540]

My friends Greg and Joanne impulsively adopted an adult dog from an animal shelter in rural Colorado a few years ago. The dog was taken in earlier as a stray wandering along dirt roads. However, it was scheduled to be “put down” due to its lack of responsiveness to simple behavioral commands like: quiet, sit, lie down, etc. Greg and Joanne were heartbroken that such a beautiful, energetic dog was about to be put to death… so they spared his life by adopting him on the spot. After getting the dog home, its behavior continued to be problematic. A few weeks later, Greg and Joanne had guests (a married couple) out to visit them at their ranch. Their guests happened to be Hispanic… which is an important part of the story. When talking between themselves, the couple spoke in Spanish. Upon hearing this, the dog stopped in its tracks and sat down… tilting his head. It was quickly discovered that the dog had a huge understanding of human language, as long as it was hearing SPANISH. I am happy to report that the dog “Chunk” lives happily to this day at Greg and Joanne’s farm… and he is a very “good boy” as long as he is spoken to in Spanish.

[@Blimbus-Blombo]

When I was growing up I had a Shetland Sheepdog that we adopted from a family friend at the age of 2. He was very well acquainted with verbal communication. I’m not entirely sure why but he understood “casa” to mean “house” (what my dad would tell him when he wanted him to go to his house). I don’t remember the context of when it was first said but it did open my mind to the fact that dogs can learn multiple languages as they are just sounds because the concept of different languages is completely made up.

[@teresaellis7062]

I can imagine that poor dog's frustration in knowing a language that no one around him was speaking and then the relief when he hears the language he understood! I am so glad your friends were able to give Chunk the time for that to be discovered.

[@midwestweirdo666]

I have a story similar to your dog faking a limp. My girlfriend and I were arguing one day and our dogs hate it when we do. One will just get scared and hide under the bed and the other will usually just comfort my girlfriend because he's her dog from before we met so when she's upset he'll try to make her feel better. There was one time though when we were arguing where he started walking back and forth in front of us with an exaggerated limp and we stopped fighting to look at him and see if we could find somewhere on his leg that might be hurt and debating on going to the vet. Once we were long past the fight and everything was back to normal he jumped down from the bed and pranced his little happy ass to get some water and back up in bed with us without a trace of a limp and we realized we were bamboozled by a 14 pound Yorkie.

[@gustavoraffo489]

He used the old "someone please call an AMBULAMB 😮" trick to end the fight haha

[@slwrabbits]

That's an amazing dog. He used his powers for good!

[@teresaellis7062]

You have an amazingly clever pupper! Dogs really are just the best. 🥰🥰

[@grandetaco4416]

We put a set of jingle bells on our back door and taught the dog to ring them to let us know she needed to go outside. She immediately abused the system by ringing the bells then standing next to the pantry door indicating she wanted a biscuit. It opens one door, why not all the doors?

[@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648]

I'd call that clever and cute

[@Flicklix]

"What are you eating?... can I have some?" This is the extent of my dog's vocabulary.

[@dezignateddriva]

where are you going? can i go?

[@dezignateddriva]

what are you playing with? can i play?

[@nickholt7783]

Mine is just „can I have some?“ he doesn’t care what it is.

[@macmcleod1188]

​@@dezignateddriva"I missed you". "I missed *you* a whole lot" vs "I was lonely and bored" "Your drunk, let's go home" to the yowling cat it just picked up and is carrying home.

[@esaedvik]

Naah, that's your vocabulary.

[@Arlecchino_Gatto]

I had a dog that ABSOLUTELY communicated what he wanted. For instance he would sometimes tap my arm to get attention when I was on my computer. When I looked his way he would pet the air to get me to pet him. The dog I have now lets me know he wants a thing by standing next to it and lifting his left front paw. Outside? Stand by the door and lift his paw. A treat? Stand by his bowl or by the counter where I keep his treats and lift the paw. If he isn't getting enough attention he pushes things off of the bed. Like my blankets. Pay attention to your dog. They will find a way to communicate.

[@JasonBunston]

Ours faked a cough once for attention.

[@qa377]

Interestingly enough, puppies will paw at their mom when they want milk, and as they grow up, pawing at things or people ends up sort of meaning "please give me"

[@NoName-ik2du]

We had a dog that used to do a very similar thing for attention. If you were at the computer, he'd come put his nose under your forearm, and then fling your arm into the air with his nose so it landed on his head. It was his very direct way of telling you that it was time to pet him.

[@KatharineOsborne]

So I have 6 buttons for my dog (water, treat, play, cuddles, settle, outside), and she uses all of the regularly except for "outside", which has been frustrating as that's the one button I really wanted her to use, especially during potty training. However I once locked her water bowl outside, and I have a big glass wall in the living room, with the buttons on one side and the water bowl was visible on the patio outside. After a couple of hours of it being locked outside and inaccessible, my dog pressed the "outside" button, and looked at the water bowl and looked at me, and I finally got it. I felt awful but I also felt amazed and proud. She understood the word "outside" at an abstract level. I had been teaching her to use it when she need to relieve herself, but she learned that it has multiple meanings and applied one of those meanings. I would have assumed she would press "water" if she wanted water (which she does when she wants fresh water), but she specifically chose "outside" to indicate a problem. I know that dogs don't have our level of capacity for language, but I'm convinced they are more capable than we might assume (really we just need to stop putting humans on pedestals so we can properly evaluate other types of beings).

[@RichSDet]

Putting SOME humans below on the intellectual scale may be an excellent idea. Did your dog think of that?

[@charlie_p0011]

I hope those who feel their pets are capable of thinking and feeling apply it to animals other than their pets and stop eating them or exploiting them for milk.

[@d3nza482]

No. Dog didn't understand anything "at an abstract level". You just convinced yourself that it did. DO NOTE that you're even describing the event as YOU FINALLY GETTING IT. Not the dog finally getting it "at an abstract level". I.e. On some level, you actually know you're fooling yourself, you're just not willing to admit that. You're too smart for that! You have a pedestal and all to prove that! Instead, you went ahead and constructed an entire complex reasoning and communication map for your dog. While also constructing reasoning how it was YOUR error not understanding the dog's way of thinking - all that rather than accepting the reality. That the dog is simply not able to communicate more than a few simple needs, completely unrelated to the buttons it is pressing, with you filling out the gaps with confirmation bias. Here's a hint. Had the dog been able to understand "at an abstract level" it would have been pressing "outside" and "water" repeatedly, until finally getting to you. Hell... it would scratch the patio door, bark or vocalize some other way. Do you really think your dog just gave up on all the millennia of built-in instinctual behavior in favor of some buttons - willing to sit there, thirsty, for hours, looking to make eye contact with you and the bowl? Is your dog SUCH a stickler for etiquette when it comes to water and food? Or have you instead cherry picked one single moment it stumbled onto "outside" button and eagerly read the meaning you were waiting for into that. The people who sold you that toy are basically using your dog to pull a cold reading scam on you.

[@tondekoddar7837]

@@d3nza482I've had several dogs, they did only do one thing. This terrier now, showed me new sentence, "play" "food" "outside", and took each (toy, showed want food and when I said ok backed up and brought leash as outside)... Yeah we had had 2 of those, but at friend's place we sometimes went to hunt moles on nearby place. I asked friend how much he'd be willing to bet we'll be beelining to that mole-field, didn't want any since watched same episode. Yes we usually went to other places there but dog remembered (30 mins walk there). So difference between dogs yes, and what interests them, probably not a fluke, not sure ofc. But beeline there. And the first two things dog did take back when I said "ok let's play" or didn't want "food/treats". Yeah, the dog did same "sentence" later in different place too, "let's go eat play with moles outside". Near other place.

[@FJK22]

@@d3nza482 chill. It’s not that serious.

[@VoltCruelerz]

Regarding dog sound boards, we have one for our dog with a couple dozen buttons on it, and she does string them together in meaningful ways like "help ball" if a ball gets stranded under furniture, "help water" if the bowl is empty, " ouch" to indicate either physical or emotional pain, or "later play" if she wants us to pause the TV and play with her. Sometimes she just presses the water button before taking a drink for seemingly no reason other than to announce it. Obviously, we can't know exactly what goes through her head in these situations, but she clearly uses them to get things she desires, so that is definitely communication, and she seems to understand the words from how she can put them together in ways we didn't teach her, though she seems to have no concept of grammar. Regarding false positives, that's not really a thing except when she forgets exactly where a button is and she starts hitting all of them until she finds the one she wanted and then looks over at us.

[@dbf1dware]

That last part is sort of like playing charades. You make a motion, and once someone says what your are trying to convey, you look and them and point. Same thing.

[@soffici1]

I get the impression that different dogs have different level of intelligence, so the sound board might work with yours, but not with another dog because the second one has a different level of understanding of the workings of the sound board. Even among humans we still have flat earthers and those who believe in supernatural beings, while also having Nobel Prize laureates… Imagine extraterrestrial intelligent beings coming over to Earth and the first humans they encounter are some morons hung up in some megachurch convention. Not a very good first impression, is it?

[@dbf1dware]

@@soffici1 Yes, of course. There are many dogs, individual dogs, of greater than normal understanding. But most dogs, while being quite smart, and exceptional at reading what humans want of them, are still responding to what their human "master" (chosen master by that dog itself) wants of them. Dogs are AMAZING at reading humans. BTW, this comes from a Vet of >30 years in practice, so not just some schmuck. I think these sound-boards are a great idea, but you need to start very small and see how far your little friend can go. However, having said that, I would also encourage all you dog owners out there to learn along with your dog-friend to speak to each other. It's not that hard since both of you are working toward the same goal.

[@soffici1]

@@dbf1dware very good advice. We have adopted a 7yo Rottie and she was obese, depressed and frankly quite unresponsive. In the course of the last 3 years she’s grown to have a new childhood (dunno if the term is applicable to dogs, but hey). We play games with her and, albeit not her chosen master (that title goes to my better half), I try challenge her with new games and to teach her new tricks. But she’s old and scared of male humans (she was beaten by a pair of them), so the learning is veeeeeeeery slow. The sound board is nowhere in her future, but it’s satisfying to see her waggle her tail again

[@RealBradMiller]

Her hitting the water button before drinking water is like the sounds my dad makes before and after he drinks... 😂😂😂

[@astorbeijer9424]

My wife and I have a wolf dog. I would say he's as intelligent as a 3ish year old child. We always give him options, as really, that's the only way to have a wolf dog without being in a constant battle. We've never baby talked to him. We treat him like a 3 year old. We've been amazed at how many words he seems to have picked up over the years. He tells us what snack he wants to eat by play bowing when we've said the right word. He seems to have even a rudimentary understanding of time. If we say we'll do something in 15 minutes, he will come and remind us almost exactly at 15 min. The same works for 30 min and one hour. Other than that, he knows the word tomorrow, or at least he knows it means not today. He tells us when there is something dangerous in the woods, like a moose or snake nearby. He's very clear with his language despite never barking. If it's a moose; he'll suddenly sit, look at us and then stare in the direction where it's at. If it's a snake; he'll lean against our leg to get us to go in the other direction. It's very rare that we feel like we don't understand what he wants or that he doesn't understand what we're saying. It's really made for a more interactive and fulfilling relationship with him. I've never felt like we "own" him, but that we're his caretakers, and sometimes he's our caretaker. I feel privileged to have been given the experience.

[@imdawolfman2698]

BRAVO @astorbeijer9424, you've got it. I've lived with Wolf-dogs before and they listen well and have a lot to say. And, my dogs have never been MY dogs, they are not furniture or mere possessions (as they are under law), but companions, family, really. Anybody who abandons a dog abandons their soul with it, damn them! At least have the humanity to take him/her to a shelter to be adopted.

[@dawnss8913]

Macaws are amazing. I have a blue and gold macaw also. He is 23 years old now, had him since a baby. He says "cracker, cracker" When I say "we don't have any crackers right now", he says "then how about a banana"

[@MadsterV]

I had one that would do fashion checks. Every time I wore something new and I'd walk by her, she'd suddenly stop, stare up and down for a few seconds, then either act very happy or turn around and walk away. One time she walked away, I went and changed and came back and got her approval, then I had no doubts. she was right, too.

[@FLPhotoCatcher]

I have a feeling that if we ever get an *accurate* animal language translator, we will be disappointed at how small the animal's vocabulary is. Especially for cats, LOL

[@Tondadrd]

@@FLPhotoCatcher We know so little about the life of cats. I think they just don't care for us enough to communicate to us more than "want" "food"/"outside"/"pet". We are like that kid from your class you never talk to.

[@einienj3281]

Yup.. Bunny, the talking dog, has an existential crisis, bc Bunny is a dog and mom and dad are not dogs, but brother is also a dog. Now you have to figure out how to explain that you kidnapped them as babies.. 😂

[@kensvideos1]

Glad to be early.

[@Stonehawk]

The thing about complex thoughts is that it's very hard to have them without words. Bunny can operate an abstract framework that no other dogs can because they haven't been taught it. And it's VERY HARD for a dog's brain to fit the ... The SHAPE of this conceptual system. It's like building solar panels in a cavern--the cavern is not LESSER in any objective sense when compared to other spaces but it's not optimal for this function... The speech therapy buttons are like building a spotlight on extension cords so the solar panel in the cave can do anything at all. But sometimes... A shaft of pure sunlight is angled JUST SO that it penetrates deep into this environment that has had zero optimization to utilize it, but hits those panels, and we see BREAKTHROUGHS. They're breathtaking moments of precious clarity.

[@butwhytho4858]

Omg I can’t stop laughing at this 🤣

[@Maxtyur]

Cringe.

[@arenomusic]

​@@StonehawkAwesome analogy, I've seen some pretty cool videos of Bunny before but never that sun-through-the-clouds moment you mention. I love the idea of a lil pup steering the weight of consciousness with some plastic buttons on the floor lmao

[@Thepricefamilyrules]

I had a cat once (back when I was a young college student) who really did have a specific meow that said, my litter box is filthy, please clean it. She had another meow that said, follow me and clean my litter box right now or else! And yet another meow that said I'm crapping in your bathtub! I didn't believe it myself until the second time she crapped in my bathtub and then I learned to speak her language or else.

[@Lil_Ducky97]

Honestly I’m so glad someone else’s cat does this too, it’s very specific and I thought I was going crazy. She’s a very smart cat, sometimes she will sit at the window making chirping noises to attract birds and makes a similar noise when she wants to play

[@TheReubenShow]

I took a very short elephant ride that I was assured was ethical. Once around the paddock, and get off on this platform. As I exited the ride, I looked over at her, and thanked her for the ride, said I hoped things worked out for her. She reached up her trunk to shake hands with me, and I just melted. It was so sweet. I was just being polite because elephants aren't beasts of burden, and she knew human well enough to get my meaning.

[@dingusmcscrungophd5219]

Why would you ride an Elephant if you believed they shouldn't be ridden?

[@TheReubenShow]

@@dingusmcscrungophd5219 It was a fund-raiser for an elephant charity. And, the gig was two days a week, at the Renaissance Fair, which won't even allow the horses to have bits in their mouths. The worst already happened to that elephant, she saw her family killed in Africa. It would be better if she was never in captivity, and no elephant should be taken from the wild for our amusement. rb

[@batintheattic7293]

@@TheReubenShow Okay, but you must realise that she had probably been bull-hook trained to 'shake hands'. It doesn't mean she didn't understand that when a human behaved a certain way, or made certain noises, she had to to offer them her trunk. It's just that this may not be the heart warming story you think it is. Personally, I think that Renaissance Fair could have done a hell of a lot better. Raising money for an elephant charity by having people ride traumatised elephants? No. I'm guessing you probably won't be riding any more elephants! Don't feel too bad, though. I was dragged into a 'Sea Life' performance at Disney, once. Hysterical all the way through but I let it happen and it was definitely not an incident that I'm proud of. It's probably too much to hope that the ex MIL learned something about not endorsing the brutalising of animals by the secondary act of brutalising her DIL with tanked cetaceans.

[@christianZaal]

It's a real shame that pretty soon the only elephants alive will be the ones in captivity. Yet, the people complaining about captivity aren't doing anything at all to protect animals in the wild.

[@TheReubenShow]

Well said, sir.

[@Skijaramaz]

I once had one hell of a intense moment of non-verbal communication with my cat - at least, that's how it felt. My own biases may be obfuscating reality a bit here, so take it with a pinch'o'salt. But a few years back, my cat and I, Maya, were playing in our living room. I had a toy and was waving it around, and Maya was chasing it down, paws swinging and all that. When I was about done playing, I went to drop the toy, but by bad luck that put my hand right in the path of Maya's claw. She got me, and she hadn't been trimmed in a little while, so her claw went and got stuck in the skin of my forearm. She tugged once, twice, and then held perfectly still. She just held still and waited, looking at me. Then she waited while I carefully pulled her claw out of my arm. She knew NOT to try and move and basically asked me 'Hey, can you deal with this?' all with a look.

[@lu.ciel8770]

What a smart and sweet kitty❤

[@inyrui]

My dog does the same thing. If he ever scratches me or runs into me, he just looks at me like "oh dang." Then I tell him to say sorry and he shakes my hand and gets all happy again lmao

[@changedpace9169]

Your writing style is very pretentious. Like you took a singular creative writing course

[@engine_erin]

​@@changedpace9169let them tell their story and live, negative Nancy.

[@engine_erin]

Thank you for sharing this story :)

[@anneliejr]

Funniest interaction I had was a pair of ducks that had gotten lost and somehow made their way to city center. They really reminded me of an old tourist couple the way they seemed to be arguing on where to go. One just starting to walk as the other walked faster to catch up “saying something” the first looking back to “talk back” and nearly bumping into me. Both stopped looking up at me as I smiled and told them. “River is that way” pointing out the direction. Both giving a unison short quack as if to say “Thank you” and heading of in the direction I pointed them. My friend just gave me a look questioning “I didn’t know you spoke Duck?” I didn't either, and likely all a case of over interpretation on our part but not only did they follow my advice, they instantly seemed to be getting along a lot better. So yes, funny, odd and memorable 😄

[@VictoriaSobocki]

Awwww

[@AlexB_yolo]

Best fib in KZbin!

[@joshualettink7582]

I honestly don't know if it is interpretation lol Sometimes I think we don't give animals enough credit about what they do and don't understand. I have a bunch of budgies at home and they are way smarter than they appear at first.

[@OgdenM]

Oh they totally got what you meant and you got what they were putting out. They point at stuff with their beaks. They have been around us long enough to know how we point. (Well some know some don't) They probably didn't understand your words but... who knows, maybe they did.

[@grn1]

@@OgdenM It's possible they understood the word river along with pointing. It's also possible that they were just curious what the human was pointing at or assumed they were pointing to be helpful.

[@Lightzealot]

I grew up with a cat(Zelda) who had a litter of kittens. One of those kittens, Zaga, from birth till the day she passed at 21 years 3 months old, was tended to by humans. She preferred being at home in her mom's territory (her mom was a fighter cat). As she grew older, and you could tell she couldn't jump as freely as she wanted or move fast in general, she would look me in the eye, look a chair or a thing she needed moved, and then where she wanted it. It seemed like crystal clear that was what she was doing, we started working like clockwork, I'd just pull up chairs or boxes and she wouldn't miss a beat and complete her tricky journey up to tables or windowsills, sometimes barely pause to make sure the chair would be in position. Dozens if not hundreds of times I'd see her catch my gaze, then look at a thing, and then where she wanted it. Similarly her back did hurt, so she didn't like being picked up in the last 2-3 years of her life. But sometimes she just wanted to go Uppies. Then she'd catch my gaze, like before, then take a step closer to me diverting her eyes to the floor, and then up to me again. It was very cute cause she always had a purr going when you got down there. Like the act of observing her needs pleased her. And sometimes she couldn't get down from a place, she'd look at my eyes, look to the floor, then to my eyes again. And I would carefully pick her up and put her down. If it wasn't communicating, I don't know what is. Miss my little snugglebug dearly, even if it was all my attributing human understanding to an animals actions.

[@adrianmaule7128]

My dog and I communicate very well. He understands a bunch of human words, and understand his barks, grunts, huffs, and body language. He's a good friend

[@misskitty2133]

My mom’s bf had a 60ft boat moored in Marblehead, MA. In Summer, Ed let me & my sibs sleep out on the boat…even though moored a short distance off shore, it was way cooler than his condo. I LOVED listening to the whales & seals talk to each other through the hull. I don’t think they were all swimming around the inner harbor but sound travels far under water.

[@derekgoff7856]

My dad has a blue and gold macaw, one time he took it to an park and the macaw looked at a duck and said "hello bird, can you talk?"

[@mysmirandam.6618]

😂 I love this soooooo much 😂

[@Rapiddrive1]

At least he didn’t say something rude, or “hey baby! Love those feathers! What you doing later?…?”

[@NotSoNormal1987]

Awe. That's cute! I have budgies. The smallest of the parrot family. And even my teeny birds are so smart. I love them so much.

[@Rapiddrive1]

As an animal wishing to communicate how hilarious this episode is, I am compelled to share I had to stop at various points to finish laughing so I didn’t miss a single point you were making. which begs the point if we will find visibility in our fellow animal travelers… Thanks for being so…risible yourself!

[@stargatis]

😂😂my friend’s parrot startled her and she screamed lol and then the bird said “sorry” 😮 she was so spooked

[@curtishoffmann6956]

Two forms of communications with cats. A friend of mine had two snow-white cats we named Stripe (from the Gremlins movie) and Scuzbucket. Bucket loved to play fetch with a rabbit's foot keychain. When she wanted to play, she'd drop the foot in front of us and wait. If we threw the foot down the hall into the kitchen, Bucket would race after it, slide along the slick floor, smash into the fridge and bounce off, then bring the foot back and ask to do it again. Stripe just liked messing with people. If you were looking at her, she'd sit and stare back at you. If you turned away, she'd leap around through your blind spot and sit on the other side of you, so as you're turning around, it'd look like she teleported from one point to another. Drove my friend crazy because she never understood how Stripe accomplished that (I never told her). One day when I was visiting, my friend was standing in the middle of the living room, reading a book. Stripe came up behind her, leapt up, tapped her twice on the back of the shoulder, and then bolted into the next room before my friend could turn around. To my friend, it was like either I'd tapped her on the shoulder from my position on the couch 10 feet away, or the apartment was possessed. Cats can be jerks. It's their way of showing love.

[@NotSoNormal1987]

I have 1 smart cat, 1 dumb cat, and one neurotic cat. Luna's is a total himbo. Sola isn't that bright, but she is loving. Aster has an eating disorder. And she likes to tease Sola. Aster also doesn't like to be touched most of the time. And she is clumsy because she has way too many toes.

[@gianniskarousis5600]

A few months ago I went on an early hike and as it was my first time up that mountain and the sun wasn’t coming up for a couple more hours I got slightly lost at some point. Thankfully I was being accompanied by a dog from a nearby village and as I was moving more along the wrong path and being visibly confused the dog started whining and when I looked back at it it took me off path and after a few hundred metres it brought me to the correct path.

[@leagarner3675]

What is the wrong path when you're out on a morning walk?

[@nickbob2003]

@@leagarner3675the path you aren’t familiar with. Getting turned around even on paths can be dangerous or at least make your morning walk last a lot longer than you wanted it to

[@leagarner3675]

@@Jack_Russell_Brown I'm just curious to know what the man, and the dog, think is the wrong path. It's crucial to the story.

[@leagarner3675]

@@Jack_Russell_Brown Interesting that a path takes you over a cliff. Seems like a lot of people fell off of a cliff if there is a path there.

[@Jibalin]

​@@leagarner3675 While that is a funny thought, it doesn't have to be something so dire. It could literally be something like there's a more interesting path intended for the general public on hikes, and then there are the 'wrong' paths which are e.g. old poorly maintained paths, less interesting paths, or paths that lead to effectively a dead end (e.g. a path to a radio tower)

[@UFO_PILOT]

Joe Scott: "animals probably dont really know what theyre saying when they use the buttons." Billispaeaks: "MAD"

[@bzipoli]

rip our mad queen

[@Stadsjaap]

I taught my dog several tricks, such as "sit", "wait", "choose", etc., so she could choose which treat out of three she wants when they're laid out on the ground. One night there were only two types of treats, so I explained to her _in language_ that today she has to choose by showing me which hand. This she promptly did by sitting and then pointing with her paw to the one she wanted. I had never taught her this, and it was the first time she did it. Dogs have an internal representation of the world just like we do. 😮

[@loverrlee]

Yes exactly! My dog has done something similar too, when we presented him with three treats and told him to “choose.” He always chose the same treat, no matter where we placed it in relation to the other treats. I think it’s actually crazy and quite sad how few people even try this simple “trick” with their dog. Dogs are incredibly smart and capable of learning all kinds of things, if only they have a good teacher. Unfortunately, most humans are not good teachers. :c

[@Stadsjaap]

@@loverrlee Mine sometimes chooses a different treat when she gets tired of her favourite. She always chooses the same favourite park to go for walks though 😂

[@loverrlee]

@@Stadsjaap Aw cute. Yeah my puppy has a few favorite treats. Mostly I mean that he kept choosing the same treat over and over on the same day, indicating that of the three we presented him with, it was his favorite out of those three. :)

[@kellybennett1790]

My dog who passed last year was very tuned into human language. He would also watch me intently when I spoke to him. My father-in-law still talks about the time Bodhi was about to jump into the backseat of the car, and I just said to him, "no, go around to the other side," and he went around the car and got into the other door. My younger dog is not so great with language, but I still think she's smart in her way. When she was a baby, she would drag her dog bed over to the heating vents when she was cold.

[@HavianEla]

Every living thing is smart in their own way. The only way to be stupid, in my opinion, is to stay willfully ignorant. Otherwise, everything else is just something you haven’t been taught yet.

[@jladelaney1978]

​@HavianEla nah... there are definitely some really stupid people. If there exists an Einstein or Hawking, then there must exist outliers on the other side of the average. And I think I may have worked with one or two of them...

[@dejankulusexy4472]

@@HavianElaIndeed, in that way humanity is still second to the animal kingdom

[@RaeRaesRaveReviews]

My horse communicates with me all of the time. I recognize her facial expressions, can tell when she is happy or in pain, also if she doesnt want to do something. She is actually very clear in her communication. Usually I like to give her options (for example, do you want to ride on the trails or in the arena) and go with whatever she chooses, but sometimes I have more info than she has so overrule her and she will still cooperate with me.

[@robumf]

Some of my worse arguments was from my mare. We usually found a compromise.

[@RedDeadReverie]

That’s amazing! You must have a great bond with your horse to be able to read them so easily ❤

[@christianZaal]

That's awesome

[@jayceewedmak9524]

My first Labrador would walk up to seemingly random people and sit beside them - they had all lost a pet or loved one within a month. I'm not a Buddist but I always say he was a bodhisattva. Miss you BBD ❤

[@mmmmmmolly]

As much as i would love to be able to talk to my (future) pets, all i can think about it the heartbroken "why" all of the abused animals would say.

[@mage1over137]

Dr. Slobodchikoff has never had a cat. My literally stand by their litter and meow yell until we clean it.

[@Krankensteinn]

Boston aquarium. Im watching the cuddlefish and one swims up eye level to me and just locks eyes with me. We stared at each other for literally minutes. It felt like two consciousness locked in mutual amazement. Truely special moment.

[@kitefan1]

Did you meet Hoover the seal?

[@DrachenGothik666]

It's *cuttlefish, not cuddlefish. They don't cuddle. 😜

[@theperfectbotsteve4916]

the dont fish either but they are technically squid

[@vixxcelacea2778]

I had this experience with a fish as a kid. I learned later on in adult years that fish are much smarter than people give credit for. I don't doubt that I was probably anthropomorphizing to some degree, but still. The fish was just so curious, unafraid of me. Like, we were both curious about each other.

[@rachelann9362]

I’m autistic, so pattern recognition is something I’m pretty good at. My husband gets on me because there are some of our cats that definitely prefer me over him, and I keep telling him it’s because I don’t do things that they don’t like or annoys them (like being picked up and held on their back.) To me, dog and cat language is so incredibly clear, and it’s rare that they give mixed signals like people lying (or trying to manipulate.) basically, they wear their thoughts. You just have to pay attention and learn to interpret their language. Sure it’s not the same as understanding concepts and being able to have a verbal communication, but they are amazingly good communicators if you learn to listen. Do they really need to understand and formulate thought around conceptual ideas? Personally,I don’t think so. Understanding on an intrinsic level is vastly different from being able intellectualize it, lack of intellectual understanding does not mean one cannot understand it on an instinctive, emotive level. I do find that cat and dogs that aren’t listened to are much more reserved and their “vocabulary” of body language so to speak is greatly limited. Like my male dog is incredibly dog social, but he is a complete social idiot with other dogs.. it took a year of me interrupting and intervening play for him to start picking up on the subtle cues that say “give me space”, “I don’t want to play like that”, “this is too energetic for me”, “I don’t want to play anymore”, whereas before his main understand was them saying “Back the heck up! I don’t like you!” When they snarked at him. He just never learned the language as a pup, he had a bit that was instinctive, but he was missing all those nuances. I don’t think it ever became instinctive for him, but he seemed to be able to analyze and interpret after a LOT of repetition, and learning from negative and positive feedback from myself and the dogs I supervised his play with. Did he make the association of “when other dogs do this…. They mean THAT ” or was it “when they do this, my owner makes me stop so I need to stop”? Can’t say either way, but the resulting effect was the same. I can say that his usage of body language is still limited, but he is at least more AWARE when another dog uses it. ……my dog was like me growing up. Damn, no wonder I bonded with him. My own species confuses me too.

[@MIKE_THE_BRUMMIE]

That's so interesting I love it. My son is autistic and his issue is human facial and social cues, it's actually really endearing (most of the time lol) and beautiful...he doesn't care who you are or what the situation is he'll talk to someone and want to interact with people on a very equal level it's great that no matter how the person is presenting he'll talk to them like he'd talk to anyone else. I'm so glad the internet is the way it is because it's really opened the door on how amazing autistic people are, it's not of limits for comedy and it's also really respected I think. Thank you for sharing ❤

[@davidvomlehn4495]

Not autistic, but faceblind. Since I use body language and facial expressions to help recognize people, I wound up being sensitive to dog and cats body language and facial expressions. I like to watch dog and cat videos and predict what they're going to do well before they do it.

[@DistantThunderworksLLC]

"They wear their thoughts". VERY well said. If humans put as much effort into cueing off pet behavior than they do ours (especially dogs, who evolved to specifically pay attention to human behavioral patterns), as well as at least try to understand how we communicate to dogs non-verbally, they'd find much deeper relationships with them.

[@coal.sparks]

I had a cat who was not happy to go to the vet, and then there was a dog loudly barking and the vet was trying to feel his bladder and, unsurprisingly, he took a swipe at the vet. He was hissing and every bit of his being was conveying that he was unhappy and yet the vet was surprised that he got a scratch on his nose and claimed that no other animal had got him like that (in fact they put a note in his chart so any other time we went in to that office, the staff came out with thick leather gloves, which freaked him out even more!). I switched vet offices. I am now wondering if maybe the fact that I'm on the spectrum is why it was so obvious to me and not that the vet was extra oblivious.

[@IzItShiny]

100% agree, hadn't thought about that before. Cats are easy to understand, they communicate with their whole bodies. People? Not so much.

[@achristiananarchist2509]

On the thing with dogs failing the mirror test, I read something rather interesting on that lately, regarding an experiment to repeat the mirror test using olfactory, rather than visual, signals. The dogs were taken to a place they have never been that had been pre-sprayed with their own urine. The experience was confusing and disconcerting for the dogs and they indicated an awareness that they both knew that was them they were smelling and that they had never been here to make that mark. The idea behind the article was that the mirror test is kind of a bad way to test animal self awareness, because different animals have different ways of recognizing each other, and so telling the difference between themselves and a different animal in a mirror may not be something they are well suited for, even if they are perfectly capable of self referential thought, if they don't use visual cues as a primary way to recognize members of a group. A test carried out by dogs to see if humans recognized their own scent might, similarly, leave them thinking we aren't self aware. On the sound board thing, every demonstration I've seen has indicated that it's just a really cool way for a dog to communicate needs, and is very clearly not "language". The dog knows "when I push this button, she takes me outside, and when I push this button she pets me, and when I push this button I get a toy." But even if you assumed actual language comprehension here, why would you interpret "Why is dog?" as some sort of existential "What is the nature of my being? Why am I me and why are you you?" type thing? The simplest interpretation of that statement would be "Why is there a dog here?", especially when this species tends to react as if the dog in the mirror is another dog.

[@Catastropheshe]

If they know which button/word they should use to say something it is communication 😂😂😂

[@achristiananarchist2509]

@@Catastropheshe I referred to it as communication.

[@bopperette7260]

That makes me wonder if they recognise us the same way... Maybe not because we are a recurring visual to them which would explain why they aren't frightened by us but they are by their reflection. It's probably a bit of both.. This is such an interesting topic 😊

[@aqualms]

Changing the concept of self-realisation is genius, and also proves how short-sighted many previous scientists have been. On top of the fact that my cat often gazes at herself in the mirror - I believe she recognizes herself and sometimes appreciates her own beauty, as I do hers. It's never scared her. I even hold her while looking in the mirror and she usually just seems bored, not confused, upset, anything. And in terms of language, there's an argument to be made that none of us really know what we're saying. If I tell you an apple is jekil in French, and you have no other way of confirming that - okay, jekil it is. Even grammar doesn't need to be that complex, and yet it does appear that animals understand basic grammar concepts. We don't call children dumb when they're learning to speak (let alone a second language) why would we think the same of an animal?

[@achristiananarchist2509]

@@aqualms well whether we "know what we are saying" isn't dependent on there being a single objective sound that needs to go with a concept. If I call it an apple and someone else calls it a manzana, we are still both referring to the same object and are both fully aware of what it is we are saying. Our brains are specifically primed to link concepts and sounds and put sounds together to relate complex concepts, and a huge portion of our brain is set aside to doing that and nothing else. This is probably why, even with the insane diversity of human language, we still only use a small minority of the possible grammars that can exist. They are the ones that are the best fit for our highly specialized language hardware. Language isn't just communication, but a very specific kind of highly structured communication that is very much a human specialization. A dog learning to associate individual words with things it likes isn't at all surprising to me. That is a general puzzle that an intelligent generalist can solve. But even something like "why is dog?" Is probably too conceptually and grammatically complicated for an animal that isn't specifically evolved to use language to parse. Even very intelligent animals like great apes have issues with things like tenses and non-concrete concepts. That doesn't mean that they can't think about the past or future or non-concrete things, but their brains aren't primed to pick those things out in communication because they have no need to and so don't have the hardware devoted to it. A dog can almost certainly learn the meaning of the word "dog", but when it comes to the words "why" and "is" it's probably impossible to teach a dog what those words mean, much less what that whole sentence means together, not because they aren't intelligent, but because they don't have the specialist hardware we have to parse that information. It's actually pretty insane that we can extract meaning from the rapid fire grunts that our faces make, and we aren't able to do it just because we are geniuses, but because we devote soooo many resources to being able to effortlessly do that. It's no more surprising to me that a dog can't learn language than it is that a human can't leap into the air and catch a bird in their teeth mid flight. We just don't have the highly specialized hardware in our brains that allow dogs to do that.

[@MQuadrucci]

to be lugubrious: I believe grief is the worst thing in life- and grieving our animal kith and kin can feel like devastation, I believe because the entire relationship, all that L-U-V is... wordless; we both get to know auditory and visual cues, and looks and behaviors; but it's -hopefully- years or decades of love, trust, experiences, and bonding, all without words ........ I've had three adopted dogs, one from deadbeat friends of friends who told me *their version* of his origin story, another I found in an alley, and one rescued from a kill "shelter" on his penultimate day before extermination. The 2nd and 3rd were both sooo complicated and I'll never know their origin stories, and 100,000,000 times wished they could have told me about the times before we got together and be able to, like, talk therapy them and try to assuage their trauma triggers - man do them companion animals leave a massive hole when they go...!!! I better get to be with them after my death or I am gonna be SO PISSED!

[@mikemonti968]

"I better get to be with them after my death or I am gonna be SO PISSED!" Sooo Well Said !!!

[@perkytxgirl]

It is actually very easy to understand what dogs and cats are comunicationing if you pay attention. The trouble is that they can't communicate what you really want to know like symptoms if they are sick. I think the best you will get is something like "I don't feel good". Anything they would say on any ordinary day is already easy to understand.

[@problemsfan4132]

I'll be honest, I trust the cat pet button videos way more than the dogs. I know what you mean when they say they're manipulative-- one of mine will come running to us in fake-excitement so the other one gets out of bed and follows her, then the first dashes back to claim the bed for herself. If my cats want a space for themselves, they bug each other, not us. xD Although the BilliSpeaks channel shows mostly successful videos, her owner does a decent job of keeping the edits minimal. A lot of the time, clips are sped up instead of cut to show just how much time this cat spends dawdling or trying to find what word to use next. If a pet takes a few seconds to get out a full sentence, it feels sus to me. But if they take their time and you're already familiar with their body language, it /at least/ feels like "This animal knows that pressing a button makes a sound, and that sound gets people to pay attention and help". I can't say if Billi understands English more than any other cat, but the buttons are clearly a tool she finds just about as useful as meowing. The channel does have its ups, like the time she was able to say her stomach hurt and was quickly able to get her medication for it (This is when they fully won me over tbh). And downs... like the time she was storming away from another cat she disliked, accidentally hit "friend", and I had to miserably watch her owner gush about how "Aww billi likes her now!!!!!!" (I get that they have to reinforce the definition/consequences of a button SOMEHOW, but GGOOODDDDD). She wasn't in the same room when it happened, which is understandable. But it did make me think over the pros and cons of button conversations. At the end of the day, these are still animals. Their body language is just as important as vocal communication, if not more in some cases. If we gave our language to non-human creatures and only took them at face-value, we'd just be doing them a disservice. I feel the buttons work best when you can actually see them, it gives you a better sense of their intent. Okay, now I'm rambling. I don't think my cats would take well to buttons, but channels like hers have taught me to pay a lot more attention to their body language and facial expressions. Billi is a very expressive little thing and /most/ of her responses are pretty on-the-money. It's made reading my own cats postures and expressions a little easier. (Ironically, it's also motivated me to avoid overly anthropomorphizing them). (Except when it's funny). (Always give your pets a little voice when it's funny).

[@problemsfan4132]

Sorry for Mucho Texto if anyone actually reads this. I forgot how much I actually cared about this stuff until I realized I was editing it into paragraphs 💀

[@joyl7842]

My neighbor's special-needs dog is so well-trained he knows when she's cold, brings her a blanket and knows which groceries to get at the supermarket, which he actually gets from the shelf and puts into her basket. That dog's training did cost the same as a new car though.

[@sthomas6369]

My dog definitely understands a lot of words we speak around him, because he reacts - and it's not just things like "out, walk, treat" etc. He knows the names of our family members for instance. He communicates back in a number of ways though, not all verbal. He might make a sound, but also his body posture, how his ears and tail are held, and he will also sometimes use his paw to get attention. Another method of communication is that sometimes he'll pee, like if he's nervous (that's not uncommon). One example is when he wants food, he'll make some chuff kind of noises (not quite a bark) but also will do a little dance and consistently turn his head to where we keep the food. My point is that it's not just "what does that bark mean" they're using ALL the cues available to them. What I've learned from all of that (and from having different dogs over the years) is that learning to communicate with an animal is something that goes both ways. It's not simply me learning to interpret the dog's communication, it's him learning how to communicate with me. That means another dog might not communicate the same way my dog does with me (because other dogs I've had in the past have used different methods).

[@justsomenobody889]

Until I got a dog as an adult (we had many as kids) and attempted to 'teach' him English by speaking in a very simple consistent way, I feel like I completely underestimated their potential to understand it. Maybe our current dog is especially gifted in this regard, but he knows the difference between ' is going on a jog, he'll be back soon" vs " is going in the car, he'll be back later". If he hears "soon" he will start to get excited, whereas if he hears "later" he looks dejected. If we say " and and are all gonna go in the car" he gets INSANELY excited. If I ask "where's your leash?" he will look around for it. He seems to know 'happy', 'sad', 'fight', 'sleepy', and 'excited', but unclear whether this is mostly from our tone of voice. It's really incredible how adept they can be.

[@ShapeShifter499]

15:03 -- Some refer to the paw pads of animals as "toe beans" so the acronym being "B.E.A.N.S." is awesome

[@thea.m.p.co.467]

It is completely unnecessary to include the word, "furries". Furthermore, your phrasing would imply that furries are not people...

[@ShapeShifter499]

@@thea.m.p.co.467 I have made an edit to my post. I did not mean to offend.

[@thea.m.p.co.467]

@@ShapeShifter499 I'm not actually offended, and I didn't think you meant any offence; the phrasing just stuck out weirdly to me. I [used to] know one personally who was a bit... sensitive. Guess I'm just"triggered by proxy" and white knighting for someone I haven't talked to in decades. 🤷 my bad, lol

[@ShapeShifter499]

@@thea.m.p.co.467 No worries, I understand. I sometimes mess up and phrase things that sound bad out of context. Language is hard lol

[@Magnymbus]

My friend Allan had a dog named Satchle that learned people names, and tried to mimic them to get a specific person's attention. It wasn't very good, but the fact that she understood that those sounds indicated an individual was astounding to me. That dog actually tried to mimic a bunch of words. The clearest one, in my opinion, was her call for water. Usually, it was adorable, other times it was impressive, but a couple of times it was downright unsettling... She was mostly Husky, and also had a habit of singing along with people in that hilarious husky howl way. Maybe Huskies are just especially expressive, but I don't think I ever otherwise met a dog that so clearly tried to speak. My mom also had a cat names Teagan that had very distinct meows for different things. A long, high-pitched meow that dipped in pitch a little at the end was for food. A long, loud, medium pitch that slowly rose in volume and pitch was for attention, like when he was seemingly lonely or scared. There was also one that was a little quiet, started very low, rose quickly, then slowly dropped in pitch and volume to basically a whisper Story time ... I only remember him using it on one specific day. For context; I was about 8 at the time, and didn't live with my mom, so I only interacted with him on weekends... It was shortly after he ran out in front of my feet while I was in a bit of a rush, got accidentally kicked across the floor, scrambled away with his tail straight and puffed up, and hid under the bed for a few hours. He started "crying" about 15 minutes before he finally came out from under the bed. It sounded a lot like he was legitimately crying. So much so that it's seared into my brain. After finally coming out from under the bed, he continued crying about once every ten seconds or so, while he walked over and climbed on my mom's lap, and 3 or 4 times more while he laid there getting soft pets from my mom. He usually hated being picked up, but just about climbed onto my mom's shoulder to make her hold him when she moved to get up... He hated me before that happened, and actively hid from me after, until he accidentally clawed me on my leg pretty bad and I cried. He sat across from me for a bit, then laid down next to me, licked my hand a few times, and eventually did a little sigh and walked away. He seemed ambivalent to me after that.

[@jackinthebox301]

I saw that prairie dog "Alan!" joke coming from a mile away. Did I still laugh, though? Absolutely.

[@Ivan_Ooze]

What’s really awesome is when you spend enough time with animals to pick up on their language and it looks like your a beastmaster to everyone else

[@kennyoffhenny]

Bro played Minecraft

[@aceholepictures]

Nah, bro went outside@@kennyoffhenny

[@kennyoffhenny]

@@aceholepictures you tellin me you can talk to animals? 🤣

[@aceholepictures]

read OP@@kennyoffhenny

[@delphicdescant]

The hard part is ruling out the possibility you're personifying them and imagining things. And if you think there's no possibility of that, then it's even more likely to be happening.

[@nancycowell-miller4321]

Years ago, I bought some weird collar attachment gizmo that purported to translate my dogs' barks. I knew it was bulls# when I bought it, but figured what the hell, right? All I remember about it was that it kept repeating, "Feed me!" "Feed me!" I knew it! Didn't matter which dog I attached it to: "Feed me!" Damn thing was faulty! (Or was it?!)

[@garethbaus5471]

So it literally trained dogs to bark?

[@thomaschristopherwhite9043]

Well what if it started talking about how the housing bubble was gonna burst due to nothing propping up the housing sector?

[@cillamoke]

Hehe

[@Globovoyeur]

It might have been trained at the Little Shop of Horrors /s

[@TheRealCanadianGeek]

That opening sketch was freaking hilarious

[@neowolf09]

Just wait until you hear the song dolphins have waiting for us. "So long and thanks for all the fish"

[@ryanjohnson3615]

Reminds me of in Douglas Adams book "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" where they bred a cow that wants to be eaten.

[@SprocketN]

I thought of that too. So I scrolled down the comments. I’m happy that I’m not the only person to think of that scene. We could definitely do with a few million babel fish to help us humans to communicate better too.

[@philipr.6090]

"Don't worry, sir. I'll be very humane." 😂

[@AbstrDistr]

15:03 How dare you!? B.E.A.N.S. is one of the greatest acronyms I've ever seen

[@Larzang]

This. I mean, seriously, what's this man's gripe with beans? What's he got against 'em? 🐾

[@snow8725]

Birds are the absolute beans! So for communicating with birds B.E.A.N.S is a perfectly suitable acronym! They are smart beans with wings and feathers!

[@hypotheticalaxolotl]

11:00 The main issue with Koko is that her handler basically interpreted everything she 'said' personally, rather than having non-biased observers interpreting from an objective list of possible signs Koko had learned. Many of the videos of Koko's 'speech' are clearly edited, too. Which, fine fair enough for a public release, but the original footage was often not released for the scientific community to verify the interpretations from. There are also accusations that Koko was basically coached into saying what her handler wanted her to say, subconsciously or not. And the final nail in the Koko coffin is basically that when we *do* have examples of uninterrupted, fully viewable 'speech' from Koko, it's basically long strings of gibberish and buzz words (that is, words that she knows her handlers respond positively to.) There's little-to-no indication that she actually understands what the words she's signing mean. We also have videos of her handlers interpreting Koko, and it's not a great look - what would basically happen is Koko would string together a long series of unrelated signs, and her handlers would fish around for *some* kind of interpretation that you could get from *some* of the signs, ignoring the strong majority of her signs. Sometimes they would get her to sign again, but in a way that reinforces which words they're trying to pick up - that coaching accusation again. And often in these videos it would take Koko many attempts at signing many varied and unrelated words to get *something* her handler pick up on as something that could actually have semantic meaning. It's hard to see Koko as an actual strong case of animal communication once you know a little bit about how her attempts at communication were actually handled and what they looked like in-the-moment, rather than merely seeing the final edited footage.

[@CapaNoisyCapa]

Yup. I mean, even back when there was huge scepticism in the scientific community regarding Petterson's "research" and many appointed serious objective flaws in her methods and that much of her data was heavily manipulated. Nowadays, no serious researcher or scientist remotely consider "Gorilla Sign Language" as something of value. I don't think Dr. Petterson was being malicious, it's just one more case of bad science.

[@ГеоргиГеоргиев-с3г]

Doggos would be able to communicate if you shape, sent and "logically link" the buttons as what they would communicate to you, and train them from puppies, people forget that communication is two ways, both parties trying to communicate, try to understand what is going on in the other brain, if not you get a one sided conversation with a wall. Technically even lions and gazelles communicate, but it's usually as simple as you are becoming my pray.

[@MrSparsilis]

Ok I have a question if u say help and expect help and the gorilla signs help becouse she knows it will trigger a help response what's the difference I don't get it he literally sead that they don't know the meaning but they do know the outcome of I pres 5 9 66 and get food whell I also as a human learned in school that line swirel round with tail line dash line circle means help so I am pretty sure that's the same thing every KZbinr or scientist says it's different that we know meaning and the animal knows only effect but I'm sorry if we ok say a dog is objectively dumber by human standards ok sure let's say it's true but that does not stop us from communicating at all u assume that ok it only understands effect well ok good teach it 900 effects by that point to me atlest that is a regular normal language it's like if some one can't wright whell cool when can still communicate even removing that from the options list the question here is not can we talk it's can we adapt to a more simple way of communicating or a different way to be precise so yea in my eyes koko was talking was doing a good job of it and was doing what she can given her respective capabilities it's like saing a bike is not a motorcycle there for it's useless and incorrect but you still can ride bouth to the same destination having in mind the limitations of there respective limits that does not discredit either for a mode of transportation it just makes one more advance then the other one or a sling shot to a gun I can hit you and hurt you just as bad with one as I can the other if I account for the limitations of each so yea in simple terms I think they can we can and we need to adapt to them not the other way around so ai has to translate us to them and them to us having the limitations again in mind and if it can do that that is communication it is it's like telling your dog to come inside it will not understand u but move to the side and look down left where the door is and the dog will understand ok he she means come in and it will that is not me affecting the dog that is me using the langue of the dog to tell them what I mean u know it's like a Korean and a indian talking they will understand each other eventually it's just human to human blind or soundless it's still human to human that's why it's easier but dog or crow to human needs 50 procent of us 50 of them to make a reliable link otherwise it's me talking to my toaster not gonna happen unless I programe it with a computer to translate what I mean in a ok I get you now machine language same with aliens if we think of talking we need to learn how .

[@ГеоргиГеоргиев-с3г]

@@MrSparsilis use shorter sentences and more punctuation, got it! MESSAGE RECEIVED!!!

[@fruitpigenthusiast120]

​@@MrSparsilisplease make use of basic grammar

[@evananderson1455]

"Right here, Mr Bengal Tiger. This is where the man who poached your mate lives. Have fun."

[@capt.bart.roberts4975]

We had a cat that learnt if she wanted sympathy, she'd hold her front paw to her chest. After she'd got an infected rat bite on her left front paw! It was adorable!

[@Sam_on_YouTube]

It is generally well accepted that Koko knew a lot of signs. What most scientists have now concluded is that the complex sentences were a result of bad science. She wasn't really communicating that far above the level of a dog understanding knowing what "walk" or "vet" means. She understood and could communicate words. Sentences, particularly ones that were responsive to human questions, were a result of just reporting the hits and not the misses. There were HOURS of video not released for every impressive interaction we got to see.

[@leagarner3675]

Cite your source please.

[@Sam_on_YouTube]

​​@@leagarner3675Wikipedia has a large number of good sources cited in the "controversy" section of the page on Koko. Start with those. Certainly not all scientists agree, but the weight of the most credible and least biased evidence is not on Koko's side here.

[@hypotheticalaxolotl]

WHY KOKO CAN'T TALK, H. Terrace, Linguistics, 1983. Soup Emporium also has a video that touches on many of the same points, "Why Koko (Probably) Couldn't Talk (Sorry.)" @@leagarner3675

[@bigboss-tl2xr]

Yes please, where/how did you obtain this information?

[@hypotheticalaxolotl]

@@bigboss-tl2xr Tried to post it, KZbin decided my comment should be hidden. Didn't even post a link... Look up "Why Koko Can't Talk," a paper from 1983 in Linguistics.

[@GreatAwakeningE]

Most animals, from my experience, use non-verbal cues to communicate, like using their eyes a lot in their communication. Many animals like cats, and dogs to a lesser extent, do a slow blink to let YOU know they are okay, and okay with you. Dogs often look at objects and back at you, to let you know something about the object. Most animals also use their ears to signal how they are feeling. Its said that cats only yawl at humans because they are copying us, cat to cat communication is almost always non-verbal, unless they are really pissed off. I definitely anthropomorphize my cat, and I guess he is felidomorphizing me!

[@laurajarrell6187]

Great comment. Cats talk to us the same as they talk to kittens. And as kittens, to their mom. 💙🥰✌

[@kushclarkkent6669]

You're so right! I just never knew how to put that into words. That's how my 8 (soon to be 9 YO) Yorkie and I communicate.😂 We're so good at nonverbal communication, it feels like we're connected to the same wavelength. He does the slow blink thing when it feels like he's trying to process my emotions, he nods and points his head toward items he wants to interact with that he can't reach, signals for water, food, his toy, looks at me deep in the eye, barely blinking when he wants to go to bed. All kinds of stuff. It's like we have our own language! I love dogs so much lol.

[@CallTheWeatherCops]

I worked at a dog daycare for 7 years. Dogs communicate more with their eyes than people realize. In the pet industry there is something called "whale-eyeing" and that's how dogs communicate to each other that they're uncomfortable and convey to the other dog to give them space. Tense eye muscles is another sign they're attentive and not relaxed etc. Dogs communicate to each other in subtle ways, but once we learn how to read their body language - everything at the dog park makes sense 😂

[@laurajarrell6187]

@@CallTheWeatherCops So true! You can get a fear response or aggressive behavior by staring into their eyes. Though, that's true of many animals. Though not herd animals, they watch hands more. I bet they think we're some kind of cat-like creature, our fingers look like claws? 😁🥰✌

[@petevenuti7355]

Felidomorphizing sounds so wrong.

[@jaredkennedy6576]

I have a Swiss Shepherd rescue who is one of the more intelligent dogs I've had. She is quick to show if she is happy or upset with something, and has learned how to signal what she wants. Or at least she's trained me on those signals lol. She's missing a hind leg, and whenever she has an itch on that side, she'll get up, walk over in front of me, and kick her stump like she's scratching. So I'll start scratching, and she'll move around to the itchy spot. She only does this with me though. She's also learned what sounds I make coming up to the house, and is always waiting at the door for me.

[@Braunfolk]

The humor on this channel keeps getting better and better

[@thedarkknight1971]

17:35 - Such a CLASSIC! Along with 'Night tiiime... Day tiiiime!" 🤣🤣🤣🤣 😎🇬🇧

[@sunshine3914]

Working closely with animals for over five decades, I have quite a few stories of animal communication. One that surprised me the most was a hen last year that had severe wry neck & hellacious seizures. Not being familiar with chickens (lifelong domestic pet sitter), I had to look up cures & had to improvise in order to work with what I had (they’re not my hens). Placed her in a small cage next to her coupmates while adding vitamins to her water & changing it out twice a day. The neck improved by 90% within 4 weeks, but the seizures didn’t begin to subside until I started feeding bananas, & with that she would look at me & then look at the other hens, all the while pleading vocally. So, I gave in, against my best judgement (being that other hens can be ruthless, & she was like my miracle hen), & reintroduced her back into the flock. She was ecstatic, for approximately a minute, & then I witnessed the longest, most severe seizure ever. I thought the worst, but for ten months she’s been seizure-free & looks completely normal, except for most of her wings missing from getting caught on the bars (had to surround the inside of the cage with plexiglass to avoid this). Out of 8 hens, she’s the only one that knows where the gates are located & the noise that the latches make. She also knows the routine of the sporadic petting zoo. This only reinforces what I’ve known for decades, peaceful time spent one-on-one with creatures, have them falling into sync faster than any other force ever will.

[@daveinthewildOG]

I don't know if this is right, but I picture if my dog could talk it would be like having a toddler around constantly telling me it wants to play, and always wanting a snack. I don't think generally the dogs would ask to be free. They always seem to be looking for a club. I could imagine other animals asking to be free. I'm not certain all the animals we think love being with us actually would that if they could say something about the conditions that they're in.

[@richardhallyburton]

Sounds exactly right. My dogs are the equivalent of young children, aged maybe 3 or 4 years old. One is happy to be 'free' but only if she knows you are around. The other, if outdoors, prefers the security of being on the lead to being off-lead, but is also not concerned if you are not around. They can both understand a surprising amount of general conversation, but are primarily concerned with conversations around food, play, and going to bed, all of which they love. It really is like having young children around.

[@tondekoddar7837]

3-4 years sounds about right. Terrier (7 yo now) can count, when I hide some treats she goes search, comes when thinks all done... I tell and show with fingers "still three, go" and she comes after three found. If not, she doesn't come and sit and wait for me to acknowledge, she touches my knee with nose so I'll help. Not if she found those last three.

[@tondekoddar7837]

​@@richardhallyburtonAlso, wouldn't have believed it but with terrier we sometimes went mole hunting, she had things like "outside" = stretch, "play" = bring toy, shake, drop near me, "need human help" = very short whine, "food" = watch, turn head. So, I was really surprised one day she came to me, sat and waited until I payed attention. Then asked food, I was about to rise and give but she went and brought toy, I said "ok let's play" and she went away with toy (first time), then came back, stretched and I was "ok let's go"... Guess where we headed ? I said to friend let's bet however much you want we're going to mole place. Friend laughed and said not going to take the bet. Shortest route to 3 kilometers away to mole place. So "play" "outside" "food", so let's go outside play (dig) moles and eat'em. Darn. I've had 6 dogs but yeah, not one did its own sentence before afaik, last 50 years... Mira has about 40 words, can order humans ofc or ask for toy, treat, food etc, picks only treat she wants, otherwise turns head until human finds correct one, or points where a thing is...

[@jcortese3300]

I saw a cartoon like that about a "puppy translator." Every voice bubble was filled with "What's that?" "What's that?" "What's that?" "Gotta pee!" "What's that?"

[@MissPlaced84]

The whole time watching this video, I was thinking "...but cats and dogs already communicate with us." All domestic dogs have the same bark to say they want to play, to warn of danger, and to tell someone to back off, and most humans instinctively recognize these barks without needing to be taught. Cats don't meow for other cats, they meow for humans only. IDK if this whole endeavor will work the way most people would expect. I don't think we'll get to a point where some software is constructing sentences out of meows or barks because I don't think cats & dogs speak in sentences (or at least what we'd recognize as sentences). I joke that my cat has me well-trained, but he does communicate what he wants pretty effectively. When he wants me to follow him, he'll trill in a specific way, and leads me to what he wants -- ie if his water dish has a hair in it, he'll lead me to it and then make a shorter trill to tell me he wants fresh water. You can tell by his body language when he wants to play a game with a toy or be chased around (lil guy loves getting his humans to run around with him). He also gets obviously mad at me if I get terse with my kid (or make them bathe), and will nip at my feet to wake me if my kid's having a bad dream.

[@christianZaal]

That's amazing, thanks for sharing

[@vlad9519]

Yep, I think it's quite likely we'll be able to communicate with animals in our lifetimes, especially with the help of AI. I think we'll find it most fulfilling when communicating with intelligent pack creatures like whales or dolphins. My old cat Max has been a part of my life for 14 years. He always seemed to like me more than other people in my family, which I chalked up to an ability to understand and communicate better with him than anyone else. He's a Himalayan Siamese, so he talks as much as any Siamese is known to do. His tone, however, changes depending on what he has to say. I can recognize tones such as "where are you?" "hi! I missed you" and "I want it!" (wet food or brushing). He's almost 19 yrs old now, and it breaks my heart that it's becoming more common that he wanders the house at night looking for me if he wakes up randomly from his sleeping spot on his heating pad. If I'm awake, I'll call out to him and he'll join me in my bedroom sometimes; other times he'll acknowledge where I am and then go back to his spot and back to sleep.

[@Hoigwai]

Having a collar like in the movie UP that could let me hear my little boy's thoughts would be amazing.

[@graham1034]

My spouse suggested we get a sound board for our very needy cat. But I already know that he always wants food and pets. At least his current ways of getting those (meows and headbutts) are cute. Hearing a sound board say "Feed me" or "Play with me" over and over again would get old fast. Now if I could train him to tell me when he feels sick or whatever then that would be great, but that seems basically impossible.

[@JessieMassoudi]

I’m not gonna lie, my cat gets pretty annoying with the food related buttons. But we were also able to catch his IBD before it turned into cancer because he kept pressing “belly” “ouch” and “potty” “ouch”. We took him to the vet and they didn’t see anything. But over the next few weeks he stopped eating and he kept pressing those same buttons. I took him back to the vet and told them about him pressing those buttons and not eating, they did a biopsy in his belly and found that he has IBD! Now he’s on medication and a special diet and has so much more energy. I don’t understand why the vet couldn’t see it before, but it’s crazy that he was able to tell us where the ouch was so we could keep looking! That makes it worth all the annoying “spamming” that does indeed drive us a little crazy lol.

[@vlad9519]

WOW that's incredible! @@JessieMassoudi

[@JesmondBeeBee]

Talking to red pandas would mean waiting for some time for them to wake up from an hours long nap, and then they'd only want to talk about apples and grapes.

[@matthewa441]

And taking naps

[@RUBBER_BULLET]

I liked the Gary Larson piece which had a dog translator, but it turns out that all they're saying is repeatedly shouting 'Hey! Hey! Hey, you!'

[@gabrielsfilms2086]

11:54 if you know pressing button = food, then its basically the same as talking.

[@lpsfoxstar8454]

I direct you to the channel of Billi speaks, the home of a cat with sound buttons, spasifically the video about the yard gate, as in that her and her mommy had a whole ass conversation of how the yard gate is broken and thus Billi can’t go outside

[@DagenhamPot792]

Billie speaks inspired me to train my kitten with recordable buttons.... it's all fun and games until you realise you've given your cat the ability to place demands on you... at 3am when they want "playtime", "outside" or they're "hungry".... He doesn't spam the buttons at silly o'clock any more but I'm telling you now... he wakes me up EVERY day pressing, no spamming...the outside button... It's actually really easy to train them to communicate with the obvious buttons like the ones I mentioned... But he really did go through a phase of using them at night 😂. I recommend everyone try to train kittens and puppies with recordable buttons now... It's a real game changer when your cat can reply to you asking "what do you want" with recordable buttons. If not for Billie speaks I wouldn't of ever taught him any words... just commands like most dogs ie... hi five, handshakes, sit, laydown, wait, turn around... "Up" to get him on my shoulders... "kisses on the ear" or "give me love" to get him to headbutt me whilst on my shoulders (rubs himself against my face)... There's a guy who makes cat videos with his trained cat... titled "5 cat tricks in 10 minutes".... I think every new kitten or puppy owner should watch Billie speaks and "Mia the adventure cat" with the tricks training videos. And yes... it's awesome having a trained cat that can communicate on a basic level. Real game changer.

[@lpsfoxstar8454]

@@DagenhamPot792 i’d still miss meowing tho, i would want my roommate to speak to me :/

[@DagenhamPot792]

No he stopped meowing at doors to get me to open them once he started using the outside button... I much prefer the buttons to him meowing!

[@lpsfoxstar8454]

@@DagenhamPot792 to each their own :D i loved nothing more then to wake up to the neighbours dog barking

[@DagenhamPot792]

I dunno there.... meowing doesn't get a response from me other then being told off! I really do much prefer he uses the buttons. If I ignore him asking to go outside for example.... he will fall back on meowing to get my attention... which is why I usually give him whatever he's asking for pretty much straight away.... He will spam the hungry button if I dont feed him straight away for example... and yes I really do mean he spams them if I dont react within like 20 seconds... It's alot cuter and less annoying then meowing to me. I might jokingly moan about it... but I ain't ever not training any pets I get in the future. It really is a game changer when you can ask them... what's the matter... "what do you want".... and they can litterally tell you what they want.

[@dreamcoyote]

Growing up we had a couple of white shepherds that learned when we were talking about taking the dogs on a walk. We started switching to "ambulatory experiences" and other terms but the funny one was "W..A..L.. K". If you spelled a word, one of them would cock her head and listen extremely intently, mostly for the L and the K. If you said other letters, she would wait for the right sequence (or at least A L K as I recall). My last dog was very co-dependent and always had to be within sight of me. It bugged me until I accepted that it made her happy. I would take her and our husky to the state park for walks and she quickly learned to watch for leashes, etc. She was so attuned to me after a couple of years that if I was sitting at my computer working, and I literally just *thought* that maybe we would go to the park, within 30 seconds she would start bouncing around and getting ready. I tested it a couple times, staying carefully still, and she still could pick up sight or smell of something and didn't really make mistakes. She also knew that if both dogs got in the car, it was an adventure. If she found she was the only one in the car (we let them run from the door to the car) then she knew it was a trip to the vet :P. Also, huskies talk. A LOT. I'm just pretty sure not much of it is serious ;)

[@colorbugoriginals4457]

i have a moyen poodle service dog. she communicates a lot via eye contact and has excellent pattern recognition. i am always trying to find out what new words she has learned without our realizing it (her understood oral English official vocabulary is 100+ words). animals communicate in many ways already that we just overlook, as the bird studies have shown. i was a language teacher and translator and i decided to basically teach her English and learn her language. ❤

[@dannyarcher6370]

Props for getting freaking PATRICK WARBURTON to do Lulu's voice!

[@JediMediator]

I thought I recognized that voice!

[@shamusmcwright2640]

I thought it was someone trying to do his voice

[@dannyarcher6370]

@@shamusmcwright2640 It is. r/wooosh

[@Corsuwey]

Reminds me of that Far Side comic where a dog translator shows that dogs are only saying, "Hey! Hey! Hey!"

[@christianZaal]

I was thinking the same thing 😊

[@scottygordon3280]

I'm enjoying the new creative choices Joe and the team are making. It's good to take risks and shake things up!

[@OReely444]

My dachshund would fake limp alllllll the time lol. He figured out my wife would carry him back from their walks when he did.

[@MadsterV]

A friend of mine had a poodle that faked being taken away by the wind so they would let him in. With barely a gust outside. Hilarious.

[@johnoglesby-vw7ck]

We had a very old English Bulldog. I took him for a walk while my wife shopped...too far for him, I placed him in a cart to get him back to the car. I swear the look he gave me, once he realized he really never had to walk and what a rotten human I was for hiding this tech all his life!😆

[@OReely444]

Haha yeah he would fake shiver too. Terrible dog, but a hilarious creature.

[@miinka]

I had a dog who would fake a limp as well! They would limp around when they wanted attention & then snap out of it whenever they saw a cat or something else more interesting 😂

[@JoshuaFinancialPL]

my standard dachshund does that when it's raining but we want him to go out to do his business. he limps. of that doesnt work, he hides inder the bed. the only way to get him out is open the back door and yell, "squirrel,Gus,get him!!"

[@dvdschaub]

Did you ever see that comic by S. Harris (I think) about 40-45 years ago in which a scientist invents a dog translator? All the dog says is "Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!" I think of that comic anytime someone talks about animal communication.

[@florptytoo]

😂

[@extrantice]

Professor Schwartzman and his canine decoder, by Gary Larson =D

[@kendomyers]

I had a dog that used to burp, very cute. Especially when he was a little puppy, so innocent and sweet. There was a very specific spot between my house and our neighbor's house that if you spoke, it would echo. When the dog was a young puppy, he ran off at night and disappeared, I looked up then went after him but couldnt find him. Looking all over the yard. Then I heard a little puppy burp echo - I laughed and ran over and there he was sitting on his little butt between the houses. He got so excited, ran toward me like "you found me!" I miss that dog.

[@scribeslendy595]

I had the incredible luck to get to go snorkeling around a cuttlefish mating ground. I think that single experience completely rewired my brain as to how I view animal intelligence and communication. Absolutely marvelous creatures

[@michaeladair6557]

God Damn Joe Scott, you got me immensely curious with just a thumbnail and a video title AGAIN! Give your thumbnail guy a raise because I've already given him all the thumbs I'll ever have...

[@benjaminbeard3736]

I kind of live out in the middle of nowhere. My closest neighbors, at the end of my lane, are a little over a mile away they had a little Jack Russell Terrier that would fake a limp to get my attention when I would drive by. I had never heard of any other dog doing that and no one else ever believed me I'm so glad you brought that up. That's hilarious You're right, it works.

[@surferdude4487]

I once had a Silky terrier that did the same thing.

[@TheIndarian]

My Cat communicates quite clearly most of the time. She sits by her dish, her litter box, or the door and meows at me. Other times she meows at me and I have no clue what she wants, but most of these times she just seems to want some petting and attention. Its not precise communication, but it is very clear.

[@marcpym5251]

Why did the angry tech guru at 4:36 remind me of Zorg in The Fifth Element?

[@Petra44YT]

You now how they say that dogs and cats don't really understand the words we are saying but just react to the tone of our voice? Well, I've seen that this is most likely not the case. Twenty years ago, my daughter and her husband went on holiday in Croatia. Just your normal holiday things, such as relaxing on the beach and all that. That's how they met Grammy. They later called him Grammy because he reminded them of the Gremlins so much, with his giant ears. Some people did feed him, but still, he was malnourished. And he choose my sister and her husband as his new people. So, they asked the people who were feeding him whether it was alright with them if they just took him home with them. They agreed, and that's how Grammy made the transition from Croatia to Germany. (By the way, there is a funny photo showing him on the beach in Italy with that cat sitting next to them. They had of course not expected to travel with a cat.) He was a smart cat and lived with my sister and her husband for many years. But in the beginning, when he was new, I had the impression that that cat did not understand a word you were saying to it. He probably didn't. After a couple of months, I did not get that impression any more and he was just like another cat. So, to this day, I believe this cat spent those first few months learning German. 🙂

[@paulas_lens]

I love Trade, been a subscriber for at least two years. No decision, coffee straight to my mailbox, I just grind, brew and drink.

[@jacquelynsmith2351]

"OMG will you SHUT UP! I'm trying to sleep!" - my geriatric cat. "Stop wiggling! I'm trying to sleep here!" - the hedgehog in my sleeve as I'm gaming.

[@CaedenV]

When playing BG3, always ALWAYS speak with animals, it never disappoints.

[@TimothyWhiteheadzm]

When I get to know a particular cat, I come to learn approximately what it wants or is feeling much of the time. Sometimes this includes vocalizations eg a particular meow may mean it wants water. But most often it involves a lot more than sound. And if you want a 'conversation' then you need a way to communicate to it what you want or whether or not you understood what it wants.

[@TRUSTLBLACKMETAL]

i hadent seen the allan, steve prairie dog video in years, thank you, that got me

[@hughdat]

Ahhh the magic of small mouth noises -probably Terence McKenna

[@DistantThunderworksLLC]

We have a 4-year-old Cavapoo, Ozzy, that I've trained on buttons (i.e. Walk, Potty, Chow Time, Play, Milk Bone and Treat) since he was about 9 months old. He doesn't understand complex concepts like many who anthropomorphize might claim, but he definitely has made many associations and can communicate on a rudimentary level. He’s learned over 120 spoken words (e.g. knows “left” from “right”, recognizes locations in the neighborhood like our “mailbox”, can identify 6 different stuffed animals by name, knows “upstairs” from “downstairs”, “Mommy” and “Daddy”, reacts to motion security alerts for “driveway”, “deck”, ‘backyard”, etc., knows the names of critters he likes to chase, e.g. “racoon”, “rabbit”, “opossum”, etc.), all of which I work with him on during daily interactions. But until just last week he has never combined two of these things into a single complex "grouping", I'll call it, nor did I think to train him to. To preface, there's a couple of behaviors he's developed over time completely on his own. One is with his Play button. At around 2 years of age he started occasionally hitting his Play button for reasons other than wanting us to play with him like how I trained him (he’d hit Play, I’d tell him to go get a toy, after which he’d go to his toy box and bring one over to tug-of-war, fetch, etc.) I should interject that he has two toy bins, one upstairs and one downstairs in my office, and naturally from day one without any training (a benefit of his Cavalier heritage, I suspect), he won’t touch anything else in the house unless it’s from a designated toy box or if we hand it to him (my wife has stuffed toys lying around the house), including food. Food! That’s right, from day one he wouldn’t touch food outside of his dog bowl, unless we handed it to him. Of course, he may tap our foot (something I taught him to associate with the word “please”) or lay his head on our leg staring to beg for food while we’re eating, or go nose-point at his “chewy milk bones” (which he considers a “treat”, as opposed to the hard milk bones, and yes he differentiates between “chewy bones” and “milk bones”) or the fridge for dog bacon, but he’s never tried to lunge for food, and we can leave a room to go get something confident that he won’t even attempt to get to our easily accessible plate of food. Again, this wasn’t specifically trained. He is a bit timid so it may stem from that, i.e. perhaps he’s just not wired to challenge for alpha status. Wherever that comes from, it’s probably an aspect of why he’s been so trainable and quick to pick up on “tricks” and words (including “parkour”). He’s very in tune with and dependent upon, people, and even prefers the company of people over other dogs (he has a handful of favorite people in the neighborhood). At any rate, to get back to the behavior related to his Play button I referred to in paragraph two, one day he started to hit the Play button but instead of always coming to us with a plush toy, he would, unprompted, grab one of his chew toys (e.g. set of dog toy keys, bone, etc.) and take it somewhere by himself, throwing it around, pouncing, chewing on it, etc. To anthropomorphize it a bit, it’s as if he was announcing that he was going to go play with a toy, after which he’d proceed to do exactly that, but on his own, meaning without it entailing an interaction with us. More likely, this was the result of the programmed association of that button and playing with something, but I found it a fascinating development that he initiated himself. At around 3 or so years old his desire to play with toys subsided. Perhaps he grew out of that urge? He’ll do it briefly from time to time, but it’s much less frequent. But it’s been replaced by a different, yet similar behavior, where he’s moved off of chew toys in favor of things he can actually eat, primarily milk bones (which before he'd carry around the house for a few days and rarely eat-he’s a very picky eater, and will spit out even Pet Fresh dog food I place into his mouth if he’s not in the mood, the little bugger). At that time, he started often wanting us to play with the milk bone a bit so he'd have to chase it, lunge and pounce, etc. before he'd eat it. He also developed a ritual of wanting to do this every night before he went to bed (side note: we crate-trained him for two years, gradually letting him sleep with us more and more, starting with weekends until now he just always sleeps with us). If we weren't paying attention, he'd drop the milk bone (that’d he’d taken out and back into the room or picked up from somewhere he’d previously left it) at our feet and sit, perhaps give a little whimper, until we responded. Sometimes he’d pick it up and drop it again for emphasis. He’d never hit the Play button for a milk bone before, only push his Milk Bone button when he wanted one. Then last week, he did something unexpected. Before we’d even given him a milk bone, he restlessly strolled around poking at toys (something he does often around mid-evening timeframe while winding down), pondered his buttons for a moment, then he hit his Play button followed by the Milk Bone button, i.e. “I want to play with a milk bone”. I really thought it was just a coincidence. However, he's done it several times since then. I'm now all but convinced that he's associated these two things together, entirely of his own accord. He’s combined two separate and unrelated buttons, Play and Milk Bone, into the single idea of playing with a milk bone (again, which he likes to do before subsequently eating it). I do not think dogs are capable of grasping complex concepts, and that humans far too often anthropomorphize (seriously, sometimes to ridiculous extents), but I also think they may be more capable than some give them credit for. A lot of it in my view boils down to how good the owners are at picking up on their cues as well as they pick up on ours (which they're very adept at), and doing so at a young age. It of course varies by breed, and Cavapoos in particular are a great blend of excellent human-centric interaction from the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel side joined with the sharp intelligence of the Poodle side. And consistent, daily interactions can help establish a form of communication that may then allow the dog to develop behaviors/cognitive abilities ever-so-slightly more advanced. This is all anecdotal based on my own observations, of course, but they are behaviors I've empirically observed specifically with Ozzy. Sorry this was so long.

[@tonyduncan9852]

Long but good.

[@vlad9519]

Thanks for sharing! Really interesting read.

[@80s_Gamr]

OMG you are so right with the Coke joke. My wife comes from Texas and I thought it was nuts when she and my stepdaughter would order a Coke down there and the waiter/waitress would ask them what kind... to be followed by "Sprite" or whatever it was they wanted to drink. I've explained it to people up here in Ohio and some think I'm making it up, lol.

[@inomad1313]

Can confirm. You are not making it up. I would like a coke. What kind? Big Red. 😂😂😂

[@johnopalko5223]

What if you want is an actual Coca-Cola? It could devolve into an infinite loop: "What would you like?" "A Coke." "What kind?" "A Coke." "Yes, but what kind of Coke?" "A ... Coke?"

[@inomad1313]

@@johnopalko5223 😂 Na. They get it. I want a coke. What kind? A coke. Ok. Could make for a great who’s on first type skit. 😂

[@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648]

Wouldn't there still be legal problems if at a restaurant someone asked for a Coke of the Pepsi variety?

[@80s_Gamr]

@@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648 It's a cultural thing down there... I don't really see how there would be a legal issue from someone asking for something using an odd term and the person hearing understanding what they meant and responding accordingly. They just use "Coke" as a generic term for a "soda"... or "pop" as people here in Ohio say, lol.

[@benfrost148]

I was hoping you'd include the prairie dog shouting "Alan!" and you didn't disappoint

[@michaelsmithers4900]

Ethical problem… how about eating something that says: “wait you’re going to kill me and eat me… no, wait, please don’t kill and eat me”

[@davelcx1958]

And to follow up with your line of thinking ... that particular animal would then survive to have offspring … and a few hundred thousand generations later (if they avoided getting eaten) these critters would be able to talk directly to us via the power of darwinian evolution and say “I told you once, I told you a thousand times … get your a** over to Little Caesar’s Pizza and don’t ring my doorbell ever again.”

[@legacyjackassoficial146]

closed mouth, moving towards interlocutor, then open, close, long breath and slight frustration face = really important thing to convey in dogs.

[@TheWebstaff]

Joe has 23 distinct personalities. One of them runs a KZbin channel!

[@mooncaketin]

Okay, now there's an image running in my head of Joe shirtless and jacked-up like James McAvoy, telling Anya Taylor Joy that they're blessed 😄

[@satanicmicrochipv5656]

HaHa!! This was by far the best skit he's done so far.

[@Vaultgirl27]

Thank you. You put all of my thoughts so succinctly. I've had these thoughts my entire life. I "communicate" with dogs, cats, horses, and corvids for sure. It's about learning their languages.

[@jjsaxofficial]

The frog squeaking just made both of my cats JOLT hahahahaha

[@sophierobinson2738]

Billispeaks Billi named her mom’s coffee “catnip water”. At the beginning, her favorite button was “mad”. She’ll ask “where dad” when her dad is gone for work for a while.

[@dwsel]

It definitely carries meaning and isn't random thing. Also Billi likes small talk.

[@Bricejacob]

We have always had issues with eating things we think we can communicate with. Being able to speak to animals would be … challenging

[@RabblePack]

We need this so badly. So much suffering would be stopped if something could actually tell us what they try to tell us all the time but we don't 'hear', because too many humans are blind to suffering when it doesn't have human language.

[@paulhaynes8045]

Far too many are blind to it when they DO understand the language...

[@izuela7677]

Dogs and cats have evolved alongside us for several thousands of years by now. I think them developing social skills, including language learning skills, to better communicate with us would not be entirely unexpected. Especially dogs but also cats. Like there was a cat that decided to try copy people paying money for fish at a market by bringing a leaf to the friendly fishmonger. And of course that worked because it's adorable. But it was an act that required quite a lot of observation, planning and communication skills for a cat. Super rare but apparently not out of reach. More tangible/familiar subjects, like "Squirrel outside" or "Where is Daddy?" is probably something a cat or dog could learn and use entirely correctly. If it's a chatty sort. Practically every dog I've tried it with would be very much into observing the horizon with me if I asked "what was that?" and started peering into the distance. So why not buttons where it could ask me instead? Some of the more abstract or unfamiliar cat/dog topic, like "Dad is at work" it's not clear if they understand what/where work is other then NOT home or right outside. But it is close enough to conveying the words actual meaning. Then there is even more vague and far fetched topics, that I have a a hard time believing is anything more then generic button press play for funsies.

[@dashopepper]

I've always believed that dogs and cats have a much higher capacity for understanding/decoding human language than they're given credit for. As you say, they've been with humans for tens of thousands of years. However, it's only been within the last 100 or so years that a majority have been treated as valued family members (as opposed to being working property). It's not unreasonable to believe that within the next 100 or so years that their capacity for understanding/interacting with human language will also increase as each generation will learn from previous ones. But as my cat lays snuggled in my arms while typing this, I'd love if AI could allow me to verbally communicate with her.

[@ravenwolf7128]

I had a Border Collie as a kid...scary smart. ex.: She taught herself to answer phones (back in the rotary days!) by knocking it carefully off the hook with her nose and barking at it. If she knew the voice and liked the person, she would come find one of us humans--if not she would take the receiver and hang it back up LOL! We did not need to teach her anything, she picked up stuff by osmosis. She could sit, bark, kiss in the air (throw kisses), dance, shake, jump, climb ladders, freeze, wink, catch literally any toy in mid-air, open doors, and about 100 other things. She invented a game of knocking on neighbors doors and hiding, then after a couple times she would come out from the bushes and laugh like a person (perhaps more like a hyena)--I kid you not--no one taught her. She even would prank our door...once doing it at 2am...repeatedly...my mom was pissed and waited quietly behind the door, slamming it into her nose the next (and last) time she did it to us. She was also into rockabilly music, despite the fact I listened to Led Zep...she had her own tastes--I guess rockabilly had a sound she could dance to easier--which she did, jumping around, putting her butt in the air like she was playful, then spinning around, shimmying, twist, bark....she was a blast...good frisbee player too. I think she was smarter than some people.

[@tonyduncan9852]

Collies are nearly a smart as poodles. Paradoxically, little puggy things appeal to me. How useless they are . . .

[@natetroxide]

Late to the party, just discovered you channel and have been binge watching everything. Let me start with, love the opening on this lol. Also, growing up in Kansas, I would frequently here in public and within my family refer to any soda/cola as coke.

[@lukewilson125]

The sketches are a great addition to your videos.