Christina Hunger her dog Stella and the communications board
Credit: Hunger/Instagram
Christina Hunger, 26, is a speech-language pathologist in San Diego, California who believes that “everyone deserves a voice.”
Hunger works with one- and two-year-old children, many of which use adaptive devices to communicate. So she wondered what would happen if she taught her two-month-old puppy, a Catahoula/Blue Heeler named Stella, to do the same.
“If dogs can understand words we say to them, shouldn’t they be able to say words to us? Can dogs use AAC to communicate with humans?” she wondered.
Hunger and her fiancé Jake started simply by creating a button that said “outside” and then pressed it every time they said the word or opened the door. After a few weeks, every time Hunger said “outside,” Stella looked at the button.
Soon, Stella began to step on the button every time she wanted to go outside.
They soon added more buttons that say “eat,” “water,” “play,” “walk,” “no,” “come,” “help,” “bye,” and “love you.”
“Every day I spent time using Stella’s buttons […]
I have always spoken to dogs and knew they had the capability with the right tools. This type of testing proves what I knew already, and am proud of Ms. Hunger for what she has given to dogs: the ability to speak the human language in a simple way using these buttons.