This Dog Can Actually Communicate with You, Unlike Your Teenager

If you have a pet, surely you wished they could talk to you, at least once. If you say you never did, you're probably lying. 

Actually, a speech-language pathologist Christina Hunger, 26, created a keyboard with 29 words which allows her dog, Stella to press any word she wants to say.

Stella is an 18 month-old Catahoula/Blue Heeler mix, and she's been learning to communicate since she was eight weeks old. 

SEE ALSO: CHIMPANZEES' COMMUNICATIVE GESTURES SHARE SIMILARITIES TO SPOKEN HUMAN LANGUAGE

Stella can express herself by pressing the buttons attributed to specific words. She can form sentences to state that she's hungry, she wants to go for a walk, she wants a belly rub or she wants to play outside.

In the video below, Stella presses buttons "happy", "ball", "want", "outside" in order to express that she wants to play outside.

When she missed Hunger's fiancé Jake, she pressed the buttons "want", "Jake", "come" and when Jake arrived at the house, Stella pressed the "happy" button.

Hunger used the same technique for Stella that she uses for the kids aged one or two. 

Of course, this might seem unbelievable, but Stella isn't the first animal that can express herself. 

For example, Washoe, a chimpanzee, was the first non-human that learned American Sign Language to communicate. After captured by the US Air Force for research for the US space program, she was raised and taught ASL in Washoe County, Nevada, after which she was named. She knew approximately 350 signs of ASL and she taught her adopted son Loulis some signs she knew.

Another example would be Koko the gorilla. She learned many hand signs from a modified version of American Sign Language. Francine Patterson, Koko's instructor and caregiver said that Koko knew more than 1,000 words of what is called by Patterson as "Gorilla Sign Language." Also, she understood almost 2,000 words of spoken English.

So, it can be said that animals, maybe not all but some of them, are capable of communicating with people. Maybe you can actually have a late-night conversation with your cat. What do you think? In the future, maybe we'll even start to have verbal conversations with animals, don't you think?