![]() ![]() Stella can now say more than 45 words, ask and answer questions, express her feelings (“mad,” “happy”), and participate in short conversations. Stella has surpassed all of Hunger’s expectations. She started with just a few recordable buttons that Stella could push to say, “outside,” “play,” and “water.” Hunger would indicate and name the object/action and push the button to say the word. Hunger began teaching Stella after noticing the gestures and vocalizations Stella was already using to express herself. ![]() “I’m in constant amazement,” says Hunger of her dog’s capabilities. Stella also pressed the button “Help” when one of the buttons she had pushed failed to elicit a sound. “She definitely says ‘outside’ the most,” Hunger told CNN. ![]() Other Stella phrasings include, “Park love you come outside!” For example, upon hearing a noise outside, an excited Stella put together “Look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look! Come outside!” forming perhaps the most dog-like sentence ever. ![]() Using a custom soundboard, Stella pushes buttons to form phrases up to five words in length. Doggone amazing: Speech-language pathologist Christina Hunger taught her dog Stella to communicate using the same method she uses to teach children to learn and speak words. ![]()
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