By Ken Byrer

From Aesop’s Fables to Doctor Doolittle, people have dreamed of speaking with animals as they speak to each other, asking our animal friends their thoughts on life. While such an exchange remains a prospect for the distant future hinted at by new technology, we have learned a great deal about how our companion animals communicate with us without shared words.

Us Talking to Them: “Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?” When humans speak to their pets, they usually use a modified version of the speech patterns they use for infants. An article in describes the approach as “speech directed towards pets and kids usually consists of shorter utterances, more repetitions, elevated pitch, and hyper-articulated sounds” and found dogs more responsive than cats. Dogs often reacted to any human speech, but cats only to their owner. Throughout the communication puzzle, dogs and cats come from very different places and retain the features they brought to the relationship. Social, pack-hunting canines appear more interested and suitable for communication than solitary, lone-hunting felines.

“As much as we bark, meow, or pspspsps at animals, they probably miss most of what we’re trying to tell them,” according to a pet communication overview. To understand our pets, we need to pay attention to what they’re trying to tell us.

Them Talking to Us (and Each Other): “People have to realize that dogs and cats don’t necessarily have a specific language that’s geared towards people. They use their own inherent language just like I would use English or a French person would use French. A lot of their communication is body signals or body language,” says DVM Leslie Sinn. However, cats seem to have adapted the meow vocalizations made to kittens in order to speak with us; adult cats rarely meow at each other according to the ASPCA. The meow may also come from former kittens identifying their humans as caregivers and repurposing the former behavior.

Rubbing against familiar humans and delivering “head bonks” can serve several purposes, including to “mark you as their human with a pheromone, to bond with you, or to signal that they want attention …. Both dogs and cats use odor markers to delineate their territory and to identify who has been traveling through their space,” according to research. This behavior brings communication with us back to the world of smell that they rely upon far more than we do.

Although people rely on visual clues to communicate, both we and our companion animals also use body language for expression. An article this year presented a rundown of the moods our pets signal with their tails, ears, and overall postures. While noting that a cringing animal typically makes itself small to say “I’m not a threat” while the opposite usually indicates aggression, even what can seem clear requires context — just like our communication among ourselves. Sometimes fear and excitement look similar.

When communicating with our pets, we also obviously lack the rotating ears and tails that carry so much information for them. But communication isn’t a one-way street, and our pets are making an effort to understand us. Both dogs and cats pay attention to our faces. Cats respond to “slow blinking” as a sign of human affection and will sometimes reciprocate, although “we still don’t know [why],” according to an animal columnist at Psychology Today. On the canine side, one study found “that dogs differentiate between happy and angry human faces, and that dogs find angry faces to be aversive,” suggesting a solid understanding of our facial signals.

The adaptability of pet communication also shows when dogs and cats share a home. They learn to adjust their “native language” to the other creature. Sources note that “well-socialized dogs are often willing to adapt by greeting cats with nose-to-nose sniffing (and) head rubbing” and correctly transfer meanings even when their original language says the opposite, such as tail wagging (happy in dogs, agitated in cats).

What’s New: But what if our pets could actually ask for water when thirsty or complain when they feel sick? Spurred by Tik Tok videos, soundboards are gaining popularity. Vice reported on the growing attraction of using Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices — designed to help non-verbal humans communicate — for use by pets. The AACs are sound buttons with a word relevant to their pet such as “walk” or “food” which the pet is trained to touch when applicable. Notably, the owner’s familiar voice records the word. The Vice piece reports that one dog owner and speech pathologist claims his pet knows 45 words and can string 5 of them together in a sentence. Yet with a dubious history of animal communication from Clever Hans to Koko the Gorilla, researchers urge caution on AAC use by pets. Skeptics ask if pets are meaningfully employing the buttons or simply learning another trick.

A pet AAC product reviewing site notes that each pet “is unique and may respond differently to these buttons. The field is still new, and both training methods and understanding of how well animals grasp this form of communication are evolving. While talking buttons offer a novel way to bond with and understand your cat, it’s important to remember that they are just one of many ways to communicate with your feline friend.”

The human relationship with dogs and cats dates back millennia. Regardless of the efficacy of AAC, new Artificial Intelligence tools, or whatever tomorrow brings, that relationship has held strong. The chief communication method was and remains being mindful of what your companion animal is trying to convey and responding with care and love.

About the Author: Ken Byrer is a writer living in Alexandria.