What do animals have to say?

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Yep true,my 2 housedogs,a Husky and a Fox Terrier x Jack Russell,seem to understand quite a few words and phrases.The more time they spend close quarters to us and our speech,the more they pick up.Not to say our outside dogs are dunces,but the inside dogs defo understand the meaning of more words and phrases.

a reply to: Raxoxane

I talk to mine frequently. And they are always watching intently. The wheels are a turning inside of that head, behind those big beautiful brown eyes.

The advent of neural net is going to be phenomenal for our understanding of our neighbors on this planet. I just hope we don't kill them all off in the process...im sure some of the more endangered ones would have some eye opening feedback for us.

There was a recent news article about one smart cookie who has been studying prairie dog language for decades- he's been coming up with ways to use technology to translate animal language into human (English?) implementing AI that uses audio & facial/body recognition. SOURCE

With the help of AI, scientists are learning how to translate animals’ vocalizations and facial expressions into something we can understand. Recent advances include an AI system that listens in on marmoset monkeys to parse the dozen calls they use to communicate with each other and one that reads sheep’s faces to determine whether an animal is in pain. Taking note of the research, an Amazon-sponsored report on future trends released last summer predicted that in 10 years, we’ll have a translator for pets.

Dr. Con Slobodchikoff, a professor emeritus of biology at Northern Arizona University and the author of “Chasing Doctor Dolittle: Learning the Language of Animals," is on the vanguard of animal communication. More than 30 years studying prairie dogs have convinced him that these North American rodents have a sophisticated form of vocal communication that is nothing less than language. The prairie dogs make high-pitched calls to alert the group to the presence of a predator. Slobodchinoff discovered that those calls vary according to the type of the predator as well as its size. The animals can combine their calls in various ways and can even use them to indicate the color of a nearby human’s clothing. But Slobodchinoff wasn’t content just to understand prairie dogs. With help from a computer scientist colleague, he developed an algorithm that turns the vocalizations into English. And last year, he founded a company called Zoolingua with the goal of developing a similar tool that translates pet sounds, facial expressions, and body movements. “I thought, if we can do this with prairie dogs, we can certainly do it with dogs and cats,” Slobodchikoff said.

I'm convinced our German Shepherd understands German, but not English.

First cat I ever had growing up was pretty sharp too.

She loved the food called Tender Vittles. It used to come in sleeved packets. Whenever we had any, she not only learned how to open the cabinet it was in for herself, but she also got her own packet out, opened it, and ate it as she pleased. She was fairly polite about it and generally never did more than one at a time, but you couldn't keep her out of the cabinet.

Same cat also learned how to "knock" when she wanted to be let in. She would climb partway up the screen door and kick the lower metal portion with her back legs. It made an unholy loud racket that you could hear all over the house, so it was very effective, if a little scary because it sounded like someone breaking in. My folks used to have to warn out babysitters about the cat for that reason. They forgot once and she scared the poor girl to death and that babysitter never came back again.

They don't have a great deal that is interesting to say tbh. Squirrels just go on how afraid they are all the time, crows just take the piss out a everything and I have never met an interesting horse all very dull.

You might be interested in the story of Anaa Breytenbach, the "animal communicator."

Her story is interesting, once an IT Executive, she felt a calling and left it all behind to pursuit what she felt was her purpose, to explore her ability to communicate with wild animals. The piece about the leopard' Diablo' towards the end is pretty cool.

So imo, yes animals do have something to say, and some have more sentience than others. I believe the ones that share their lives with us particularly develop communication abilities that partially arise from within the setting of our shared lives, as in learning, mimicking and expressing things from within that bond and experience.

An interesting article on studying the evolution of intelligence. It seems the more creative and expanded the tests, the more animals surprise us.

originally posted by: Finspiracy

originally posted by: Nothin
a reply to: scraedtosleep

Asked my big dumb dog, what it's like to be a dog.
He said: "Wuf"...

And you, human, did not understand! Maybe that was an informative story about what it's like to be a dog. Compact and short. But what if the "Wuf" was like a .zip file?

To us, all of the "Wuf" may sound the same but there might be tiny changes in tone, length and such.

Dolphins and communicating with them, now that i find fascinating. I have heard they even give each others names and call them when needed.

Great thread!

You know it, my friend.
The "...", was meant to indicate the open-door, to the multitude of possibilities. Now that you made me think of it, probably should have put the "..." inside the quote marks, after Wuf.

Dogs are deep, until a squirel passes-by.

What a great thread. Animals are a true joy in this life, even the vindictive ones.

Not sure, but I saw this bird today.

It didn't say anything, or make a peep.

But this other bird kept shoving sugar in its mouth.
(There was a broken package of sugar on the floor.)

Nope, it said nothing.
But it did shake its butt a bit.

originally posted by: waftist

Wow I hadn't seen that before, very interesting how she calmed the leopard so quickly. I don't really think she is directly talking to the cat, but she definitely developed some form of communication with animals and it seems like more research is desperately needed to figure out exactly what she is doing.