How To Talk To Your Pets (And Other Family Members)

Doctor Dolittle dreamed of talking to animals and having them talk back. It was a fantastical notion. Except that some pet owners are already living it. Today!

Pet owners, like Nina Leipold and her talking cat, Flounder.

This very clever kitty uses over 120 words on a soundboard, has a favourite film she watches on repeat, a toy mouse with his own opinion button, and a bravery tutu she asks for before thunderstorms. She has also diagnosed her own illness, reminded her owner to pick up wine, and painted a picture. Oh, and there’s so much more, as you’ll hear.

In this episode, we (that’s Sarah Wright and Dr Victoria Stakelum) are joined by Nina, an animal behaviourist with 15 years of mammal training behind her, and occasionally Flounder, to explore what happens when you give a pet a way to communicate. Nina has enrolled Flounder in a university scientific study at UC San Diego, where researchers confirmed that Flounder processes words, not just body language. The episode covers how pet communication buttons work; the difference between receptive and expressive vocabulary in animals; why umbrella words are the key to managing a 120-button soundboard; what Flounder’s relationship with Mouse Toy reveals about play therapy in animals; and what happens to pet behaviour when you give them genuine agency.

We also put to Nina the questions that a survey of 2,000 pet owners said they most desperately want answered: Are you happy? Do you like your life? Do you love me or is it just cupboard love? Do you understand every word I say? What's your favourite thing we do together? Are you secretly judging me? Are you jealous? And, especially for the cat owners like Victoria, are you plotting something? Nina's answers might surprise you.

The lessons Nina has learned from teaching Flounder to talk turn out to apply just as much to human relationships as to animal ones. Which is why this episode is called How To Talk To Your Pets And Other Family Members.

Guest

Nina Leipold: animal behaviourist with 15 years of mammal training experience and owner of Flounder, a cat enrolled in a university scientific study into animal language and communication at UC San Diego.

Nina runs a free mini course and a full course on teaching pets to communicate using buttons - floundercat.com/button-mini-course

Instagram: @flounder_meatloaf - follow along to see Flounder progress. It really is mind-blowing.

Contact

Be part of the conversation. If you have a conversational conundrum or a question, please do get in touch via our email: abloodygoodconversation@gmail.com.

References

The university study

• The study is run through UC San Diego (University of California, San Diego) and is currently focused on data collection from thousands of dogs and cats. It needs funding to continue, Nina mentions this in the episode. Visit https://cclab.ucsd.edu/donate/ to donate and https://cclab.ucsd.edu/pet-cognition-communication/ for more information about the study.

Concepts mentioned in this episode

• Receptive vocabulary - words an animal understands when they hear them
• Expressive vocabulary - words an animal is able to communicate back
• Umbrella words — a single word covering multiple related concepts to reduce button overload (e.g. ‘hug’ for anything Flounder wears)
• Operant conditioning - the learning process Victoria references (Pavlov’s dog; reward-based behaviour training)
• Play therapy - the framework Nina uses to understand Flounder’s relationship with Mouse Toy
• Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) - the broader field of communication tools that pet buttons draw from, originally developed for humans

SHOP - Conversation Warmers

• Conversation prompt mugs - a conversation starter on the front, a follow-up prompt on the back – https://www.etsy.com/shop/conversationwarmers