{"id":79672,"date":"2025-08-13T13:11:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T13:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/79672\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T13:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T13:11:12","slug":"can-dogs-talk-to-their-human-owners-christina-hunger-explains-how-in-a-new-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/79672\/","title":{"rendered":"Can dogs talk to their human owners? Christina Hunger explains how in a new book"},"content":{"rendered":"

The front door to a house on a wide, leafy street opens and Stella greets me, tongue slurping my fingers, her tail wagging like a windshield wiper in overdrive.<\/p>\n

Stella, part Australian cattle dog and part Catahoula Leopard dog, likes me. Or does she?<\/p>\n

The 48 paw-size buttons on the floor in her house may reveal a more nuanced answer. Stella is the dog made famous in 2021\u2019s New York Times bestseller, \u201cHow Stella Learned to Talk\u201d and the star of \u201cYour Dog Can Talk: A Step-by-step Guide to Button Training,\u201d the follow-up book published Tuesday. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we get recognized, it\u2019s only when I\u2019m with Stella. She\u2019s got the celebrity status,\u201d says Christina Hunger, Stella\u2019s owner and the author of the books.<\/p>\n

Perhaps, but Hunger wants to make it clear that Stella doesn\u2019t possess superdog powers. Any dog \u2014 young, old, blind, even deaf and blind dogs \u2014 can learn to \u201ctalk,\u201d she explains in the new 181-page book ($16.99; Ten Speed Press).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"DOGBOOK-081325-10.JPG\"<\/p>\n

Christina Hunger\u2019s dog, Stella, sits in her home in Aurora, on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is definitely a spectrum. It hasn\u2019t been so breed specific as people might expect. It\u2019s really just the personality of the dog, their relationship with their humans and how much consistency and effort the humans are putting into teaching,\u201d said Hunger, while Stella dozed on her bed a few feet away.<\/p>\n

Hunger was a speech-language pathologist working with children when she had a \u201clight bulb moment.\u201d To help her non-verbal clients, she used an iPad-like device with icons the children could press to express themselves. <\/p>\n

Why not try something similar with her then-puppy Stella? she reasoned. \u201cThere was nothing like what I was envisioning out there,\u201d Hunger said. <\/p>\n

So, back in 2018, Hunger started by introducing a few basic words to Stella. She would say the word, then push a voice-activating button on the floor that repeated the word: \u201coutside,\u201d \u201cplay,\u201d \u201cwater.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seven years later, Stella now has at her disposal 48 buttons fastened to a foam board \u2014 each corresponds to a different word \u2014 that she uses to create phrases and short sentences, Hunger says. In other words, \u201ctalk.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"DOGBOOK-081325-17.JPG\"<\/p>\n

Christina Hunger\u2019s button training device, in her home in Aurora, on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025.<\/p>\n

Just how sophisticated have those sentences become? She can talk about things that \u201caren\u2019t right in front of her at the moment,\u201d Hunger says.<\/p>\n

One time, Stella\u2019s bed was removed from its normal spot in the living room while the house was being cleaned. Confused, Stella hit the \u201cwhere\u201d and \u201cbed\u201d buttons, Hunger says.<\/p>\n

Another time, after a squirrel had \u201ctormented\u201d Stella in the park, the dog, upon arriving home, smacked the words, \u201cmad\u201d and \u201cpark.\u201d Hunger interpreted the message as Stella saying she was still upset about the incident.<\/p>\n

Hunger, who is Midwest mild-mannered, no longer works with children. Managing the Talking Dog Movement is her full-time job (that, and being a mom to her children, ages 1 and 2). Besides writing books, she offers virtual dog training at $150 for a one-hour session (she\u2019ll do it in person if you live nearby). She also has 720,000 followers on Instagram. She is a consultant on her product line<\/a>. A basic bundle of talking buttons, with the mat, costs $49.99. Her husband, Jake, is the company\u2019s chief financial officer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m flying to Vegas [this week] to go to trade show and speak there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"DOGBOOK-081325-03.JPG\"<\/p>\n

Christina Hunger holds her book, Your Dog Can Talk, in her home in Aurora, on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025.<\/p>\n

To be sure, not everyone buys what Hunger is selling. <\/p>\n

Alexandra Horowitz is a professor and the director of the Horowitz Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard College in New York City. Earlier this year, she told The New York Times Magazine: \u201cDogs already do so much to accommodate our lives. They\u2019re on our schedule. They have to ask us if they want to urinate. They socialize on our schedule. They walk where we want to walk on a leash. … There\u2019s something unknown about them, and that\u2019s wonderful. Why do we lean into forcing them to wear clothes and speak our language?\u201d<\/p>\n

Hunger points to the work of Federico Rossano, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego, who co-authored a widely publicized dog speech study <\/a>in 2024 supporting the idea that dogs can use soundboards to \u201ctalk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe findings reveal that dogs are pressing buttons purposefully to express their desires and needs, not just imitating their owners. When dogs combine two buttons, these sequences are not random but instead seem to reflect specific requests,\u201d Rossano told U.C. San Diego Today.<\/p>\n

Regardless of what the academics say, Hunger is confident she has the real-life experience to prove she is right.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, on this particular day Stella is walking with a limp. She recently tore one of her front paw pads while digging in the dirt. She doesn\u2019t appear eager to do anything but lie on her bed, her nose touching a basket full of much-gnawed soft toys.<\/p>\n

\u201cStella is a good girl,\u201d Hunger coos. Hunger taps the buttons for \u201cgood\u201d and \u201cStella.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stella gets up, limps over to the board and taps the \u201coutside\u201d button in the top left corner of the board. \u201cCome on, we can go outside,\u201d Hunger says.<\/p>\n

Stella slowly makes her way outside, sniffs a bit and then heads back inside. She passes a collage of black-and-white family photographs, including one of her on a better day \u2014 eyes sparkling, tongue lolling.<\/p>\n

Hunger presses the \u201clove you\u201d button. Stella wags her tail.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely different with new people here,\u201d Hunger says. Earlier, I\u2019d asked Hunger is she could ask Stella what she thought of her guest. \u201cI can\u2019t force her to say something,\u201d Hunger said.<\/p>\n

Stella remains mute. Then Stella taps the button for \u201cbye.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIf she is saying bye, she is likely telling someone to leave \u2014 or that she wants to leave,\u201d Hunger says.<\/p>\n

I stare into Stella\u2019s chocolate-brown eyes, hoping for a clearer understanding of her intent. Stella, what are you trying to say? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The front door to a house on a wide, leafy street opens and Stella greets me, tongue slurping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[223,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-79672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}