Welcome to Litsy!

Fast and easy read. Provides a lot of detail on how Stella learned to talk using an assistance device - voice buttons. It seems almost too good to be true, but the dog research I‘ve read over the years indicates it‘s possible that Stella (and other dogs) have higher neurological functions that we thought. 3/5 stars - cites Speech Language research, but almost no canine research so a lower rating.
Also, welcome Aloy - our rescue puppy!

I also just started this book club selection now that I know I can attend the meeting. #weekendreading

Dog lovers, animal lovers, educators of all kinds will love this book. Hunger mixes details of her AAC work with children into her main story of teaching her dog Stella to use recorded buttons to talk. Inspirational and humorous. Can‘t wait to write my full review of this #arc from #netgalley🤓

I finally sit down to read and Lizzie comes over to remind me that it‘s playtime. Her 🦔 toy is out-of-sight between her leg and mine. Guess I‘ll be reading after playtime and dinner. I should probably download an audiobook. #dogsoflitsy

#WaitTime

Important for all sorts of learning.

Loving how this book combines my dog training passion with my former teacher self. Hunger does such a great job at explaining the various strategies for teaching her dog Stella how to use an AAC device.

#Truth

Have you seen Bunny on Instagram or TikTok? She‘s the dog who pushes buttons that play words to talk to her human mom. Her use of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices is impressive.

But Bunny is not the first talking dog. Stella is. Stella‘s mom, speech-language pathologist Christina Hunger, pioneered the use of AAC devices to better communicate with Stella. Thanks to #NetGalley I‘m reading her book #HowStellaLearnedToTalk

I chose "Alex & Me" for my free Amazon Kindle book this month. Normally, I am not a huge fan of animal books, but I really enjoyed this! An amazing African Grey Parrot whose language skills exceeded all expectations. His last words to his "person" before he died were, "You be good. I love you." If that doesn't tug at your heart strings...

"...some Asian elephants recognize themselves in the mirror. Whether the same can be said of African elephants is hard to tell, because up to now our experiments have resulted in a lot of destroyed mirrors due to this species' tendency to examine new items with vigorous tusk action. This makes it hard to decide between poor performance and poor equipment." #animalcognition #animalbehavior #researchmethods