It's also important to stay attuned to the concepts your dog appears to be trying to express nonverbally when choosing which words to program into the buttons ( you can find more info on the buttons she uses on her site). The book explains the steps for doing so, while making clear that the teaching process can be a challenge: Hunger emphasizes that you'll need lots of patience, taking time to “model” the words (speaking them aloud to demonstrate for your dog) and pressing the buttons yourself at appropriate times.

Many dog lovers have written to Hunger about how they've used her methods to teach their own pups to speak. Stella has now learned 49 words, according to Hunger, who's built an impressive following through her site,, where you can see videos of Stella in action. “I think the complexities of thoughts and their desires is something that would be really surprising to a lot of people.' 'Stella tells us when she doesn't like something, she tells us when she's mad, or when she wants to do something different than what we're currently doing,” Hunger said in a phone interview from her home in Illinois. Stella also uses “love you” to express affection, and has learned other conceptual words, like “good.” She's even said, “Good Jake walk,” after Jake took her for an extra-long walk. More recently, Stella got wet playing in the snow, came inside, and said “water.' She later pressed “water” when she saw Hunger watering her plants. It was remarkable enough when Stella learned to press the “water” button when she was thirsty, but then the puppy began using it when she wanted to go to the beach - a different kind of water. Maybe Stella could learn the same way, Hunger thought. While working with children who have limited verbal speech abilities, Hunger often used what's known in her field as augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), which incorporates adaptive tech for language development, similar to the programmable buttons. She describes how she came up with the idea in 2018, soon after she and her then-boyfriend (now-husband) Jake adopted an adorable Catahoula (a breed from Louisiana) puppy they named Stella. Hunger writes about Stella's jaw-dropping achievements in a new book, How Stella Learned to Talk: The Groundbreaking Story of the World's First Talking Dog (May 4). Stella has learned to press the appropriate buttons with her paw in order to express her feelings and desires. How? Hunger, a speech-language pathologist, has affixed to a board on her floor several dozen programmable buttons with words recorded on them. When Christina Hunger is curious about what her dog, Stella, wants, she just asks her - or, more often, Stella simply tells her: “Come walk.” Or “Stella eat.' Ariana Velazquez / HarperCollinsPublishers

How stella learned to talk buttons