Slashdot Mirror
Former Slashdot Contributor Jon Katz Believes He Can Talk To Animals (amazon.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland got a surprise when he visited his local bookstore:
Jon Katz turns 70 this August, and he's published a new book called Talking to Animals: How You Can Understand Animals and They Can Understand You. Katz was a former newspaper reporter (and a contributing editor to Rolling Stone) who wrote for HotWired, the first online presence for Wired magazine in the mid-1990s, before becoming a controversial contributor to Slashdot during the site's early days. Katz left Manhattan in the 1990s to live on a farm "surrounded by dogs, cats, sheep, horses, cows, goats, and chickens," according to the book's description, an experience he writes about on his blog. His new book promises that Katz now "marshals his experience to offer us a deeper insight into animals and the tools needed for effectively communicating with them."
He first made his author bones writing crap that pandered to and was about "nerds", who in the 90s where not nearly as cool as the "tech bros" of today, but then the nerds, who tend to be fairly smart, exposed his bullshit (Apple II buried under a yurt in Afghanistan? lol) and so he was forced to find another socially isolated group to sell books to: people who are so lonely they try to talk to their pets, which is to say cat ladies.
Katz is a douche. That said, maybe I'll see if I can find a used copy of "Voices from the Hellmouth" or whatever on eBay for a nostalgia trip back to the days when nerds were nerds and frat bros went into finance.
People have been talking to animals since time began... it's easy to train them to specific commands and to recognize their body language to know when they're hungry or playful... but I have yet to find anybody able to have a stimulating conversation with one. Even dogs, the animals most adapted to life with humans, aren't capable of that...
Now if he said he had been working with apes and teaching them to sign I might be more willing to believe... but as things stand now I'm pretty sure he's fucking nuts.
Katz offers an exclusive video demonstrating a dog sitting and shaking hands, clearly in response to human speech.
But do they understand what he's saying?
And if they do, how the hell does he know? Do they talk back?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
See, this is the type of shit that happens when you hang around this place too long..
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
I just asked my dog if he wanted a hug. He gives awesome hugs.
Now go over there and talk to those 2 very big nice gentlemen in the white coats......
Man, it's been a while.
I sense a musical a'comin...
Good dog.
I remember when everyone hated him for not actually knowing anything and writing heavily-slanted pieces on whatever bullshit stories people told him that flattered his politics. Little did we know then that the future of blogging was a world of Jon Katzes.
The title, "How You Can Understand Animals and They Can Understand You" needs an edit to:
How You Can Understand "domesticated" Animals and They Can Understand You.
This is because he's only dealt with such animals and none from the wild. If he's up to the challenge, I welcome him to the Sahara, where coming face to face with some of its four legged inhabitants [without protection], immediately invokes the question, "Could you be my next meal?" in the animal's mind.
"tech jocks"
FTFY - See example, Uber.
Sad cat diary
Sad dog diary
I just don't expect them to talk back, except for the human ones (and sometimes not those ones).
Anyone can talk to animals. Now getting them to talk back, and understanding them... that is the tough part.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
They just don't answer.
Say Hi to your mother for me, okay?
In the post Columbine era ....
He used a ghost writer.
You know Slashdot has gone downhill when even bringing back Jon Katz would improve this place.
Hey Jon, if you're reading this, glad to hear you're still going strong! God bless you! If you can survive Slashdot, you can survive anything.
Shit nerd is batshit crazy haha.
Once again, the headline is totally misleading. Anyone capable of talking can talk to animals.
Thinking that they understand english and are talking back to you, that may call for a check-up, an MRI, and maybe some meds.
BTW, The bats told me they have nothing to do with this and they resent your assertion about their feces being involved in any way. You will hear from their lawyer as soon as they find one that speaks bat.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
LOL I have chickens and a dog. The neighbor has a farm that's got lots of animals.
I talk to the chickens, all the time. They're my miniature dinosaurs. (They are foul beasts and I didn't actually invite them - they just marched their way here from the neighboring farm, quite a feat but not unheard of.)
The chickens talk back.
The dog does not talk back.
Now, at the farm next door, those animals talk back all the time. I moo at the cows and they moo back. The piglets squeal at me. The chickens are mouthy. They horses snort and whinny.
I don't have any idea what they're saying, and I'm pretty sure they don't actually understand me, but they do actually vocalize back to you. I'm not sure if I can call it talking, but they do make noises back.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
This is news? I see here lots of loons that wrote books like: Talking to Linux: How You Can Understand SystemD and IT Can Understand You.
I believe some animals can understand very limited amounts of English. Not much, but dogs can understand a dozen-odd words, and cats can also understand a few too (they just don't give a shit most of the time - but I'm convinced mine knows around 3 or 4 distinct words, including her name, "play", and "treat").
I haven't encountered many primates but I'd wager they understand more than dogs do.
I haven't seen any evidence dogs or cats understand syntactic constructs. Small numbers of individual words though, I think they can.
I saw it on the Far Side
Former Slashdot user finds that its easier to communicate with dogs and cats than the animals that visit Slashdot. Whether its that they actually listen to more than their giant air hole or that they actually realize that they don't know everything about every subject we may never know.
Agree. My cat will do that: if you meow to her, she'll meow back at you, back and forth until she gets tired of the exchange and wanders off to do something else. I don't there's any real information being exchanged other than a basic acknowledgement of the others' presence.
I do think she can pick up on voice tone, if I speak to her in English. She has not a single clue what I'm saying, but soothing vs harsh vs playful, she appears to get that. And conversely, she has different meows for "something's wrong, fix it human", and "pleasant greeting".
When I make my nose go up and down a bit my rabbit answers me by doing the same. Very cute.
-- Cheers!
But can he talk to CowboyNeal?
We've known this our whole lives
Numerous examples; Bugs Bunny, Micky Mouse, Sylvester the cat, Plankton, Sponge Bob, Squidward
The list goes on and on
Anyone capable of talking can talk to animals.
Sure but in Katz' case they know he's lying to them, especially if he talks about Information Technology...
I don't have any idea what they're saying, and I'm pretty sure they don't actually understand me, but they do actually vocalize back to you. I'm not sure if I can call it talking, but they do make noises back.
Yep, that pretty much sums it up for the situation at my post-cubicle e-workplace innovative paradigm disruption customer client design center where I am supposed to actually "work" . . .
"surrounded by dogs, cats, sheep, horses, cows, goats, and chickens,"
. . . indeed . . . but we collectively call them "management" . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
He can only speak to Katz.
They don't understand. They just associate the sound with certain activities..
woof meow
I talk to the chickens, all the time. ... They are foul beasts ...
They are fowl beasts.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I'd also add that there are times when they respond with behavior that can be interpreted as understanding and, perhaps, communicating. The horse will approach and nuzzle you, for example. Not chickens, though. No, they're just assholes.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
So humans don't understand then? Because that's how we learn. Oh that fire is hot, don't touch it.
But is that not a form of understanding?
I'd never stoop so low as to use a pun. Never.
If you're curious, there was a coup at the coop (I'm pretty sure) which is when the chickens marched their way to freedom and decided to live on my lawn. They didn't all come at once, it was over a period of months. That's a good half mile of chicken hiking. I have no idea how they even knew my lawn existed.
I tried to give them back but couldn't catch them and their owner told me to keep them - that they'd be good for me. Well, they're dirty rotten liars, is what they are. I have since built a chicken house, fed them, and given them refugee status - until such time as the chicken revolt and deal with the coup at the coop. They have given me only a few eggs in return and they're fond of shitting on everything from my woodpile to my tractor.
Horrible beasts. Horrible...
Meh, I've grown fond of them. I am up to seven and I've purchased zero chickens. The most recent refugee was living in the woods for a while. I fed it and kept feeding it. My earliest attempts to capture that chicken were not very good. So, I used food. Chickens are surprisingly fast, when they want to be.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Rabbits almost never vocalise but their body language is fairly sophisticated.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
but evidently not as a topic.
Some (I think most) dogs understand words -- often quite a few of them. We talk to ours all the time. We didn't realize how much we depended on verbal communication with our dogs until our old terrier went deaf. The German Shepard that preceded the terrier understood perfectly well that words prefixed with "Do" were commands/suggestions directed to her.
The terrier is gone now and has been replaced by a six year old terrier from the animal shelter who clearly is not used to verbal communication. But she's catching on fast.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
I used to live on a short/isolated street with about 8 houses on it that ended in some woods. In the woods lived about 20 chickens--I was told by neighbours that someone who'd lived there had them, and just left them where they there when they moved away.
The chickens made a circuit of all the yards in the neighbourhood every 3 or 4 days, and were welcomed by all. After enjoying 2 nearly bug-free summers there, I understood why.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
My cat understands a great deal more English than that - she'll meow at the window to come in, and will wait until I tell her to "got to the door" - no other statement will send her off to the door. Similarly she has a distinctive "yes" and "no" meows, and we can play a belabored 20 questions when she wants something. Her vocabulary is limited, and it's usually easier to just tell her to "show me" and follow her, but that doesn't work for everything.
Just like with dogs, the trick is to use a limited and consistent vocabulary of words and phrases (and intonations - they're usually a lot more sensitive to pitch for recognition than English normally is) to communicate ideas so that they can understand you, and to take the time to learn at least their basic communications (and to clearly and immediately indicate your understanding, especially when starting out, so that they learn what noises/motions to use to communicate with you)
These are social animals after all, and you need only watch them for a while to see that they communicate at least basic concepts amongst themselves, and even between species. There's absolutely no reason we can't do the same with them. Well, except for the lack of a tail - that does give us a pretty severe speech impediment.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
The great thing about rabbits is that you don't even need a knife to skin them. Also, they are tasty.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
"met with a hostile reaction in segments of the Border Collie community. Notable examples of this criticism have included Donald McCaig's review of The Dogs of Bedlam Farm in [The Bark] magazine, and Penny Tose's review of Katz on Dogs in The American Border Collie magazine"
Completely barking.
Chickens will eat anything - even other chickens. They love cooked eggs.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I really wish they hadn't filtered that. You should be able to call me any name you want to.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The chickens I live next to talk to me all the time. Idiots on slashdot are free to call me names, but I do understand much of what they say. There isn't much to understand, really, they're rather simple-minded.
Usually they say, "I see you, I'm right here. I see you, I'm right here. I see you, I'm right here." That sounds like, "bok. bok bok. bok."
Sometimes they say, "I just laid the most wonderful egg, I'm so happy I laid this egg, it is the best egg ever because I laid it." That sounds like "bok bok baGOK, bok bok baGOK, bok bok baGOK."
Rarely they're having a crisis, like malfunctioning water source, and they'll say, "bagokbagokbagok? bagok? bagokbagok?"
If they're free range they also have a bunch of phrases relating to food, which mostly translate to, "dibs! dibs! hey, I called dibs you jerk! dibs! dibs!" They also have descriptive terms for the quality of food, but I doubt a human is going to translate that as easily as the above. But it is often obvious what the topic and general thrust of conversation is.
These were French Lops, definitely not for eating.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I do it all the time. The thing is, I can't tell what it is that they are replying, or even if they are replying.
Now this is one free-speech-loving motherfucker right here. The way it should be, and I mean that sincerely.
Mine are perverts.
If you listen carefully, they're saying, "Suck suck suck suck my cock."
They're hens! They don't have a cock. Sheesh.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Ah... I have wild rabbits. Most of my food actually comes from this area - either hunted, fished, or from the farm. It's delicious.
I'm also pretty sure this thread is now derailed beyond belief.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Huh, I didnt think slashdot filtered. Kinda wish they didn't if only to make it easier to spot the garbage individuals.
It's like people who drive intentionally loud cars. "Cool... and now I know you're a douche bag"
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
They absolutely do understand. Anybody who has a dog knows they can tell the difference between "Lets go for a walk" and "It hurts to walk" and they definitely can tell the difference between "go the park" and "go to the dog park".
Of course we can talk to animals. Farmers and pet owners have been doing it for millennia. The problem is that animals cannot talk to us. We are too stupid to understand them.
The new owners did it. I am not impressed. For the record, I am part black. I just don't give random people the right to control my emotions. I don't actually care if they call me names. Hell, I hope it makes them feel better. I ain't scared.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Rabbits almost never vocalise but their body language is fairly sophisticated.
There is a good reason they try to keep their heads down...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djoikxw_BdA
With people like that running around, you can't take any chances...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Animals totally do tones, a lot more than lip-glottal-tongue crap fueling our abstract-as-fuck word speech.
You and I do tones. Humans do it all the time. All. The. Time. It lets you mutter and mumble and still be understood. Obvious example: "I don't know".
Anyway, the headline is probably clickbait bullshit, you can't "talk" to anything beneath the top tier (ie simians, some birds) but you can "communicate" with lots of animals one-way (ie Inform Them) with some amount of abstract (just not with verbal babble) and for many, prompt a (even informative) response.
And everyone knows they send one-ways as well. Body language. They do it to each other. Mostly as "we both risk a fight if you get closer" warnings, but it's still communication.
What do you mean by "very limited"?
I have a small dog, Chihuahua/Papillon cross that understands in excess of 60 words that I have taught him to understand, although he often responds to conversations between my wife and I in ways that shows he understands exactly what we are talking about, and I know I haven't been using the words I have specifically taught him to understand. There are also phrases that he understands such as, "let's go to bed", "do you want to go for a ride", "do you want a piece of chicken". He also knows quite a few people by name.
If he is sitting in my chair and I tell him I need to sit down, he jumps down out of the chair. It's nothing I've taught him. He just gets it. He understands a lot of what goes on around him and understands what the relationships are like between people. My mother-in-law and I do not get along at all, and when she comes around he will growl at her until she leaves. Smart dog. ;)
So, I wouldn't say his vocabulary is "very limited". I'd say he understands at least as much as any 5 or 6 year old kid.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
You will hear from their lawyer as soon as they find one that speaks bat.
What you talkin' about, son? All lawyers speak rat.
Once again, the headline is totally misleading. Anyone capable of talking can talk to animals.
Agreed. It's when animals talk to you that I'd be concerned.
You will hear from their lawyer as soon as they find one that speaks bat.
What you talkin' about, son? All lawyers speak rat.
Let me change over to chicken speak*:
Bat, I say BAT son!!!
<southern-mumble>That boy is thicker than home sliced bacon...</southern-mumble>
*any resemblance to Foghorn Leghorn is allegedly unintentional.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Just curious... do you think that some of that understanding is based on contextual clues? For instance, "let's go to bed" would tend to come at night, and "do you want a piece of chicken" may come when it's already available for him to smell and associate with your words. I've heard dogs are very social animals, attuned to obeying a pack leader (you), so when you order him out of your chair, he may be responding to other non-verbal cues you give him as well, and then perhaps later associated the phrase. I'm not suggesting that he doesn't understand quite a bit, as there are plenty of examples of dogs learning lots of verbal commands, but I wonder about the possibility of it being enhanced by general situational awareness.
On the other hand, I was *terrible* at understanding my cat, and being a cat, she didn't care much about what I had to say either. I forgot to unlock her kitty door once, and she came meowing at me. I thought it was cute how she wanted attention, and later felt like an idiot for not understanding her after I spotted the door. Her communication seemed obvious in retrospect. Then again, cats can be nicely blunt about what they want. If she wanted attention, she'd just jump up on my chest as I was reclining on the couch. Message received, head-scratching commencing...
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Me, too. There was some kind of willful fuzziness going on with Katz that was simply incomprehensible.
I saw once piece at large by Katz in subsequent years that wasn't half bad, from his early days of animal farm, IIRC.
A tiny piece of the same mind fungus can be sometimes found in the writings of Clifford Stoll.
Theodore Dalrymple would figure prominently on any list of the same mind fungus manifesting sporadically on the other side of the brain.
Unclassified bio-hazard level 3: What scares the new atheists by John Grey.
Another guy capable of level-10 wool porn is Alain de Botton.
My theory is very similar to yours. I think they understand a limited number of words, but a reasonable bit of situational context and vocal tone. Taken together, that can give the appearance of understanding more language than they directly do. Not to mention that it goes in both directions: I get body language cues from the cat when it wants to play, so that predisposes it to go into play mode if I say anything in a playful kind of intonation. It's not directly that it understood what I said, but it understood the context of the situation and my intent.
It's still effective as far as it goes, it's just not purely linguistic.
Over the years, I have trained many animals to communicate with me. For instance, we put bells on the doorknobs for the cats to signal when they want out.
There is a limitation to this communication, however. My animals have never expressed a nuanced concept to me. Thinking that this might be a mental capacity issue, I had the veterinarian put a chip in, but my pets are still stupid.
Or are they smart enough to fool me into being their slave?
That's gonna take barnyard sodomy to a whole new level of eww.
I think that usually, there's some meds involved _before_ believing that the animals are talking back, at least in normal conversational form.
Now, if, by "talking" you mean that my cat standing at the kitchen door meowing and scratching the window means "get your ass out here and give me food NOW." Then, sure, they do that.
I have similar experiences with the cat who lives with us now, in spite of her being even less verbal than the average cat in that she had her throat ripped out by some kind of vermin some years ago and now most of the time when she tries to say meow she says meh. She definitely understands us when we tell her what to do. I figure out what she wants from context.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I like animals and the idea of being able to communicate with them more effectively is appealing to me so I am listening to a copy of book right now.
I like it so far, interesting stories and asides. He does seem to hint at some sort of "telepathy" going on (transferring mind pictures is how me puts it) which some may find controversial, but well, as I say, so far I'm enjoying it.
Cleerline
This is a perfectly reasonable statement. I talk _with_ animals. I farm and have a large pack of livestock guardian herding dogs. We communicate with about 300 words and phrases. It is two way communications. Some of it is vocal. Some of it is body language. Some of it is sign language. I can tell the dogs things and they can tell me things and they talk to each other - no surprises there. People have been doing it for thousands of years.
What is unfortunate is that urban people have lost this connection to the natural world. Dogs raised as singles don't typically get the cultural knowledge passed down generation to generation like dogs in a farming pack. Pet dogs typically are all alone much of the day and when you get home you greet them and then ignore them in all too many cases. This results in both you and the dog losing the ability to communicate with each other.
Oh, and it isn't just dogs. Pigs have about 30 words they use, sheep use about ten words and chickens use about six words. Learn their words and you can understand what they're talking about as well as talking to them. When we're herding livestock we typically use a couple of the target animal's words to help with the herding. I say we as in both we humans and the dogs. The dogs are multilingual. They pickup the words we use to tell pigs to move forward and they use them too to get the pigs to do the same thing.
And here goes years and years of good Karma. Does Karma still matter on /. ?
His Hellmouth piece was great and brought some geek issues to the forefront and got some issues talked about in normal non-geek circles.
I joined /. because of Jon Katz and the Hellmouth piece.
Not all of his work was good. In fact some was quite awful but it always inspired conversation rather that what we now have here.
"The problem is that animals cannot talk to us. We are too stupid to understand them."
A point that our dogs have made to us (non-verbally) on numerous occasions. But their feeling seems to be that even though the average human ranks somewhere between cats and carrots on the native intelligence scale, it is sometimes possible to convey a few basic thoughts to us by repeating the same actions over and over ... and over..
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
A man and his dog walk into a bar. The man says, "I'll bet you a round of drinks that my dog can talk."
Bartender: "Yeah! Sure...go ahead."
Man: "What covers a house?"
Dog: "Roof!"
Man: "How does sandpaper feel?"
Dog: "Rough!"
Man: "Who was the greatest ball player of all time?"
Dog: "Ruth!"
Man: "Pay up. I told you he could talk."
The bartender, annoyed at this point, throws both of them out the door. Sitting on the sidewalk, the dog looks at the guy and asks, "DiMaggio?"
Have gnu, will travel.
Those are not animals, but Democrats. I know that they act alike, have no class, manners, and are unable to restrain themselves but they are still consider 'human' and just not animals.
Well, by their definitions they are human.
I have a lot of health problems, and as a result need to nap during the day. I can say, "let's go to bed" at any time of the day and he understands the meaning. As to the context of asking him if he wants some chicken, if I say "chicken" all by itself just out of the blue he comes alert. His ears stand up and he looks at me with obvious intensity. But if I say, "do you want some chicken", or "do you want some roast beef" he will get right in front of me and start begging and dancing around. It doesn't have to be meal time, or any smell of food present. You don't even have to be in the kitchen. You can be in any room in the house, outside, in the car, anywhere. He just knows what the words mean.
A big part of an animal's understanding of human language comes from how often people talk to it. I talk to my little buddy all the time as he and I spend a lot of time alone together while my wife is at work. I have done this with him since he was 8 weeks old and he's now 7 years old. I ask him if he thinks it is time for his "mama" to come home and you ought to see his reaction. He gets excited and very alert. His ears start working back and forth listening for the sound of our car. It is obvious he understands the question as if I say "mama" in any other context his reaction is nowhere near the same.
He understands enough that we have to spell a lot of things out or he gets all excited over nothing. We can't even say the word "park" without him going nuts as he loves to go run around at the park. He gets excited even if you are talking about parking the car. To him the word only has one meaning--that grassy place with all the trees and other dogs. The same with "ride", and quite a few other words. If we don't spell ride out he hears the word and thinks he's going to go for a ride and then if it doesn't happen is very disappointed.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
I already knew this about chickens, thanks to my uncle's chicken house.
One thing not mentioned is that roosters either hate children or consider them to be a large hen that needed to be serviced. I dunno which, I always managed to outrun them.
I had to run the rooster gauntlet everytime to visit my granny and grampa because they lived in on the other side.
My older relatives would yell "don't let him catch you!" and "For heavens sake, don't trip!". There may have been laughter.
Here's the facts:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-...
...on the internet you never know if you are talking to a human, or a dog:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog
> ...the trick is to use a limited and consistent vocabulary of words and phrases ... to communicate ideas so that they can understand you...
In-deed!
It's a pity that people think "These are animals and can't possibly understand anything I say.", rather than thinking "This critter has the lingusitic capacity of a three-year-old, so I have to carefully limit my vocabulary, be extremely consistent with my phrasing, and be happy if we can reliably 'talk' about around a dozen different things.".
FTFY ==> see subject, https://hkar.ru/PIeD
boy, I wonder how many more are out there... well, actually I don't wonder. 197 across 40 sites. Of this image with 15 variations in text.
That is amazingly accurate.
Wanna hear a chicken story?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
That is amazingly accurate.
Wanna hear a chicken story?
Why yes I do.
I'll refill my glass right now.
Interesting, sounds like he's gotten pretty attuned to some of those specific words and phrases. Like I said, I had a cat, so I don't have any first-hand experience with a dog's capacity to understand speech. You'll forgive my initial skepticism though, I hope, as I've noticed that people tend to anthropomorphize their pets to a pretty significant degree, but obviously you see his responses every day and know him best.
I did a quick search on the subject, and found this article you might find interesting: http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
Basically, the gist is that dogs process speech in very much the same way humans do, according to some new(ish) research that used brain-scanning techniques while talking to dogs using a variety of techniques. From the article:
“So dogs not only tell apart what we say and how we say it, but they can also combine the two, for a correct interpretation of what those words really meant. ... This appears to contradict the idea that dogs only understand tone of voice and do not have an idea of the words actual meaning. While they might respond tentatively to a praising tone using words they do not understand – or even insults – they are only genuinely happy when they understand the praise they are receiving.
Probably seems pretty obvious to you though, I guess. ;-)
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
I'd have sworn he died in a freak pack of raccoons accident some years ago. Funny story, the only reason I got my UID when I did was because he would not shut the fuck up about Columbine. Every day on Slashdot with it. He's also the only contributor on slashdot that I ever banned from my feed.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
One of my cats, a little calico, will call to me and tell me when one of our feeder crickets has gotten loose. She has a very distinctive sound for it, a sort of trill. She'll hold the bug down until I come to collect it. She's batshit crazy, but she has one job and she does it well.
Sometimes they say, "I just laid the most wonderful egg, I'm so happy I laid this egg, it is the best egg ever because I laid it."
When I had chickens that was pretty much the gist of the daily conversation. "I will use the greatest rooster. I know the best roosters", "This will be the greatest egg ever. Ever." , "We will make great nests, we will save feed, we will come up with barnyard care plans that will be phenomenal — phenomenal,". "We’re going to get rid of those turkey gangs so fast your head will spin,”, "I will be the greatest bird pooper that God ever created".
The whole flock hit the road a couple years ago. Last I saw they were headed east.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
It's no surprise at all to me about how dogs process speech.
I have other stories about my dog that will amaze you at how much he understands. I'll tell you one of them here.
When he eats his dry dog food he normally gets a mouthful of food and then trots off to a chair, jumps up on it, drops the kibbles out of his mouth onto the chair and then eats them one at a time. He'll do that until he's no longer hungry. ( He only weighs 5 lbs so a kibble at a time is enough for him.) One day he was actually standing at his dish and eating which is pretty rare. I happened to look up and he was picking out only certain kibbles, based on their shapes, and just leaving the rest lying on the floor from every mouthful he was taking out of his dish. He must have had a dozen or so kibbles lying on the floor. I looked at him and said, Bear, Are you really getting that picky? (He is a picky eater.) His head spun around like it was a top so he could look at me, and he had a look on his face I'd never seen before. Then he looked down at the floor at all the kibbles lying there. Once he'd done that he started eating all the kibbles he had been leaving on the floor, and once he'd cleaned those up finished his meal out of his bowl without sorting kibbles by shape any more.
Crazy dog knew exactly what I had said to him. His behavior proved it. It's far from the first time he has done things like that--understood exactly what was saiid to him when I had no idea he would understand me.
Most of his communication is non--verbal coming back to me, but every once in a while he will communicate verbally. If he's begging and not getting any food, he will sit there quietly for a while and then when I'm not paying any attention to him whatsover he'll bark really loudly and startle me. He definitely gets my attention. He will also "mutter" when he is upset about things. My wife and I will tell him no about something he really wants to do and he will walk away growling deep in this throat but opening and closing his mouth at the same time so it sounds like someone muttering in anger.
Animals do communicate. No doubt about it.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
Yes, very limited. 60 words is useful, real, but limited.
Google: "By the time a child reaches school age and heads to kindergarten, he/she will
have between a 2,100- and 2,200-word vocabulary. The 6-year-old child typically has a 2,600 word expressive vocabulary (words he or she says), and a receptive vocabulary (words he or she understands) of 20,000–24,000 words."
GLENDOWER
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
HOTSPUR
Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
-- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV, part 1", Act 3, scene 1.
Sorry for my delay.
So, as I've said, I didn't actually invite the chickens. They marched their way over here and, I presume, the reasons are political. Chickens have a pecking order and this implies some sort of governance. Politics is the only logical reason for which we'd have chicken refugees on our lawn.
When the chickens, just three, first arrived - they were on the lawn when we woke up that morning. Curious, we went outside and investigated the arrival of unexpected chickens. It's a good half mile, through the woods and a field, to the farm. That's a long ways for a chicken to travel and their arrival in the morning was a mystery. Chickens are not nocturnal beasts.
So, the missus asked me, "Do chickens bite?"
I, of course, told her that they do not - and that, if they did, it certainly wouldn't be hard. I was wrong.
In the chicken's defense, she said, "You look tasty." Then she reached down to try to touch the chicken.
In self-defense, the chicken promptly bit her. It bit her hard enough to draw blood. She tries to yank her hand back and the chicken flaps and flaps while trying to hold on. She damned near had the chicken off the ground, before it finally let go.
She managed, at that point, to swear at both me and the chicken - at the same time. She was inventing swear words as she went along and would have made a sailor blush.
It turns out, chickens do bite - and hard.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I'll second what the other guy said.
I've raised my black lab from when she was a pup. Both my Wife and I work from home, so she gets tons of social interaction with us. We're attuned not just verbally, but in terms of body language too.
I can tell her "Go give [family member] a kiss" and she'll do it. She understands "go inside" or "you can come along" when we're all getting in the van. If she's sitting in my seat, I say "Scooch", and she moves. "Do you want to play ball?" gets her really excited. So does the word "Grandpa", because my father-in-law is her favorite person in the world.
When she was a pup we went on a lot of trail hikes off-leash, and we organically developed some commands like "wait" with no formal training. I call "wait", and she'll stop and wait until I catch up. It worked the first time I said it. If I say "go on", she'll run on ahead. If she's hanging back, all I have to say is "come on", or whistle. If she starts running off toward a lake, I say "NO!" and "come". She then sheepishly walks back to me, disappointed but obedient.
"Drop it" doesn't always work when we're playing ball, but if I put my hands on my hips like I'm mad, she'll do it. I also have to be careful about my body language, because she can read when I intend to pick up the ball and go inside. That's when she hangs back. I have to make sure that I don't change whatever I was doing with my arms/posture when I was intending to throw.
Bok bok cluck cluck means police ,hide the pot field.
lol, this is disappointing. Now I've learned that I can't turn to you for advice on chickens.
I attempted to have some chickens a very long time ago on purpose.
We bought a dozen sex-link chicks, but in our ignorance had it backwards and wound up with a dozen roosters. They grew quickly and soon began fighting. Eventually there was one huge survivor who then began attacking our dogs (having no other foe). Previously the dogs had just been observers. The dogs had been told to not attack the chickens and were strangely obedient on this, I think.
The dog-rooster fights (more like rooster attacks on fleeing dogs) went on for about a month or two until one of the dogs finally decided it had had enough.
The neighbors say our folly provided them much amusement.
Oh, I'm now a chickenologist, though I don't speak chicken. I try, but I've not yet been able to figure it out. I'd like to think I'm making strides, but that seems unlikely.
Before the chickens migrated to my house, in the Chicken Refugee Crisis, there was a coup at the coop. Roosters aren't always the boss - in fact, they're pretty much dirty rapists. They will peck at the ground and pretend they're eating bugs. The hens will fall for this and the first hen to get close, well, gets raped.
Now, at the farm, they had a big ol' hen. I call her Bossy Hen but that's not important. See, she's dead and a new Usurper Bossy Hen rules the roost. Not only was Bossy Hen murdered, presumably in a political struggle, the body was pecked to pieces. What I figure happened was Usurper Bossy Hen decided to off Bossy Hen and probably got the fat rooster to do it.
Then, after that, she made the rest of the hens swear fealty to her and perform a ritual pecking of Bossy Hen's corpse.
Shortly after this, the refugee chickens arrived. Like I said, I'm pretty sure it's political. Now, I've allowed the hens to stay - and have accumulated even more. I've been here for years, it was just two years ago that they just started showing up. My thinking is that there's going to be a civil war. I call it La Pollo Revolucion because, in my head, they're like Cuban freedom fighters.
I let them stay because, well... How can I force them to go back? They need to revolt and have a democratically elected government. It's not right that they had been taken over by Usurper Bossy Hen. That's just not okay.
On a more serious note, I kinda know a lot about chickens now. I even learned how to vent sex them.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I can talk to animals. I can even get some to listen and follow actions.
Now, what would be huge, would be to listen and eavesdrop on animals talking to each other, and UNDERSTAND what they're saying. That would be huge.
But anyone can talk to animals. I have seen enough crazy cat ladies talking to their dozens of cats to know that is not a significant talent whatsoever.