Interview: What Are Dogs Saying? with Federico Rossano | Particles of Thought

We often said "Boo" around the house as sort of a funny greeting when nothing in particular was going on and then we'd laugh. Eventually our dog learned how to Boo us!

The bias with wolves is they are still wild and not domesticated, so they do not grow up learning to ask humans for help. They will bond with humans but more as equals, which requires greater skills on the part of the handler. Wolves are less motivated to please us, which, as wild animals, is understandable. They are brilliant. Packs (families) coordinate with each other during hunts and they are deeply social, but much more independent when it comes to humans. Grey wolves are also probably not the direct ancestors of donestic dogs. It would be interesting, instead, to study feral and wild populations of doglike animals and see if, should they care to ask us, what, if anything, they would opt to communicate.

As an elderly person who has raised many dogs and cats, I can say each have unique personalities and levels of intelligence or ability to catch on to new things. When I got with a world renown dog trainer to train my first puppy, he didn't train the dog, he trained me how to read my dog's language so that I could communicate with the dog. Dogs too have a unique ability to read human body language and tone of voice. Dogs can learn hundreds of human words and associate them with things and actions. Cats less words. Cats are harder to read but it can be done. Cats have a way of training the people they live with using different techniques. My current cats will go do what they know will irritate me the most if they want to be fed, flip the water bowl if they want fresh water. When they do those things, they then look at me like now just get up and do it for me.
I find the button communication very interesting.

Thank you for doing such great work for humans and our furry best friends, Frederico! I had tried to train my 15-year old senior cat how to use the talking pet buttons for about 2 months (he didn’t want to press), and my new 2-month old kitten was observing me modeling the words for about a week before she started pressing them herself (and in the right context). After another 2 months, my senior cat saw the attention I was giving the kitten so he then started pressing the buttons (also in the right context). This type of communication has really deepened our bond. Sharing about it has had many others rethinking what’s actually possible with animals. Looking forward to the next evolution of your research!

Surprised there wasn’t much more discussion about the age of various animals and when their brains, as a species, are naturally learning by leaps and bounds, including language. Most humans find it difficult to learn a new language or change their accent after puberty. I’ve seen other studies on cats that showed if you keep one eye shut for one day after the first eye opened a few days after birth, then you release the closed eye, the cat will be blind in that eye for life. So there are development windows where a brain needs to be stimulated in order to learn, and if you miss the window, it will have a profound effect on what can’t be learned very well, or at all, outside that window. Another example is humans learning to hear perfect pitch. Learning it as child around 5-7 results in 90+% of humans can develop it. Trying to learn that skill outside that window is only a few percent. For other things, human brains take decades to mature and that’s why we keep learning well into adulthood. Many other animals mature much faster into adulthood so it seems highly likely that pushing the boundaries in getting animals to use these buttons to communicate would likely go much further if you start when they’re first born.

For the algorithm!

How do you teach "Ouch"?

It’s all so fascinating! I look forward to future research findings from your group!

I've been so skeptical of those videos on YouTube. I am shocked to see there's actually something there and thankful for researchers willing to take a chance to find out. Very cool interview, and I definitely learned a lot of stuff that's wayyyy outside my area of expertise. Thanks!

I’m a widowed retired navy chief with two dogs. It’s a quiet life we live and I’ve noticed that my two dogs communicate mostly by body language then vocal sounds. I’ve also noticed that they seem to recognize my body language. When I ask them what do you want, they look at the item if it’s visible, then go towards the item and I’m beginning to recognize sounds particularly with what I assume they want. Sometimes I think that they are training me!

Dogs do talk. Maybe not quite like humans, but. all we have to do is turn off the cell phone and just listen!

As a Truck driver who listens as I drive during my day, I kept wondering why I could barely hear the guest speak and Hakeem was so loud…Now I see that he was talking more into space than into the microphone! 😁

I've always wanted to know how they trained those dogs. I've always trained my cats to have a large vocabulary. I had a cat that knew words individually. I could use them in different sentences and he would understand the concept. Words he knew were, kids names, outside, mouse, not a mouse, lay down and many more words. I wish I had those buttons then. ❤

I don't doubt that dogs or cats can learn to press a button to tell a human they want food or want to go outside, as these are already things they communicate to us. I also dont doubt that they have more complex inner processes. But I am very skeptical about these more complex interactions. A small child doesnt neccessarily understand WHY adults are reacting the way they are reacting, they just know that saying certain words illicits a response. And they quickly learn how to manipulate their parents to get the reactions they want. And we know that animals do this as well… cats learn how to simulate the same frequencies as crying babies to hijack the attention of the mother, who is biologically compulsed to react to that sound. We also know that dogs have evolved to be capable of human-like facial expressions. So we know that the emotional manipulation of owners is part of the toolkit that has been unintentionally bred into them in the process of domestication, and they are very good at it. So how do we parse what is real genuine communication of real states of being, and what is just emotional manipulation to illicit a comforting response from an owner?

Dogs instincts came from the father of all (adam created the animals which represented God's children spiritual senses)

God's children evolution created the spiritual realm in the physical

All countries natural resources were created by the population of the land those with water falls represent the third eye that was once active in the physical

Precious stones found in a country represents the chakras most dominant or completed when our patterns was upright

A bear don't need a calender informing them when to hibernate because their vibration and patterns align with mother earth frequency

Likewise all animals created by our spiritual enlightenment

Our atoms starts at neutral referring to neutrons it's up to us to build the blood or depreciate it based on actions chosen in the physical our patterns aligns to vibrations that alters the blood likewise our circle they maintain a frequency and why I'm subscribed to this channel and all that are high vibrational

Words are spells casted conversations are spells small minds speak about others the average mind events and those with a higher dimension the wow factors