Humans have a natural urge to anthropomorphize things, Herzog explained, which means you assign human characteristics to non-human things or creatures.
For the same reasons most of us are totally cool with — and, in fact, sort of love — talking animals (and snowmen — whats up, Olaf?) in movies and TV shows, we love talking to our pets.
Whats more, your pet loves when you talk to him or her, too, according to Vetstreet. Its a total win-win situation: You gain the psychological benefits of companionship and feeling less alone, and your pet enjoys your friendly, conversational tone. They may not understand exactly what youre saying (although there are some dogs that have been shown to know over 1,000 words), but they can guess your emotion within your tone of voice, which is important when theyre working to understand what you want or need from them, even if all you want is a snuggle.
Even though the instinct to talk to pets is pretty natural for all humans, there are, apparently, some people who are more likely to talk to their pets than others. A 2008 study done by researchers at Northwestern University showed that people with few or no friends tend to engage in more emotional conversations with their pets, while others with more social lives tend to limit their conversations with pets to more simplistic, factual sentences.
Talking to Your Dog Is Good For Human Health
Your dog will pay the most attention if you use words they understand, but chatting with your pooch isn’t only about them. Talking is a way for people to put their problems out in the open. Your dog doesn’t need to respond or offer their advice to help you work your way through a difficult situation. Simply talking about it out loud to a nonjudgmental audience is helpful. It helps you look at a situation objectively, and talking it through allows you to reflect on the facts and work your way toward a solution.
Talking to dogs is a technique many therapists and psychologists use when helping people cope with difficult situations and manage conflict resolution. Children often feel more comfortable directing their stories toward a dog than they do an adult, and people who have survived traumatic experiences find comfort in a dog’s listening skills. Canines are the best kind of soundboard, and talking to your dog about your daily problems is a good way to vent and maintain mental health.
You and your dog don’t speak the same native language, but dogs are expert linguists. They’ve learned to adapt to life with humans, and a big part of that is learning our language. They don’t understand things like sentence structure and grammar, but they can easily catch on to vocabulary.
A Border Collie named Chaser has proven she understands over one thousand words, and she can even respond appropriately to simple sentences. Chaser is a known brainiac, but even the average dog has the mental capacity to learn a long list of human words.
Some of the words your dog understands were explicitly taught to them, like “sit” and “stay.” There are also words they learned all on their own, like “ball,” “treat,” and “bath.” No matter which category the word falls under, the key to a dog’s understanding is repetition. They only learned “sit” because you said it over and over again during training. And they learned “treat” because it’s what you say before you hand over a delicious morsel.
Listening to you is the best way your dog knows how to learn, and every time you open your mouth, there’s opportunity for them to learn more. They’ll start picking up on words you say frequently, and that better understanding of your language will lead to improved communication between dog and person.
Human Speech Can Be Interesting
If you drone on about how awful your boss is, there’s a good chance your dog is barely paying attention. Your voice is probably a familiar-sounding buzz of background noise, and they’ll only start actively listening if they hear a word they recognize. Telling your dog about your day is good, but it’s even better to talk to them about things they can relate to and understand. They don’t speak the same language, but they’ve learned how to recognize dog-related speech, and studies show they enjoy listening to it.
Researchers at the University of York in the UK recently published a study about how dogs respond to human speech. They wanted to know if dogs can tell the difference between human and dog-related language and whether they benefit from one over the other. To find out, they performed experiments where people talked to dogs in different tones and about different subjects. They tested both “normal” tone of voice and the high-pitched kind of speech we humans can’t help but use when talking to babies and pets. They also switched up the content of the conversations between subjects unrelated to the dog and topics the dog could recognize. Those topics included phrases like, “Do you want to go on a walk?” and “You’re such a good dog.”
They measured the dogs’ responses to each combination of tone and content, and they found their canine conversationalists were most interested when speakers used dog-relevant words, and they remained actively engaged in listening when they thought the conversation was directly related to them. They learned that if you really want to engage your dog’s mind, regularly talking to them with words they understand is a good way to do it.
How to Talk to Your Dog, According to Science
Many people with a dog, cat, hamster, fish, or really any pet, can relate to the tendency of talking to your animal. Telling your pet how much you love them, that they’re a “good boy,” or even about your day can be relatively normal for a lot of pet owners. Humans have the anthropomorphizing habit of conversing with their pets, but it often makes us wonder, why do we talk to animals if they can’t understand?
We asked Sermo physicians – if you have a pet, do you regularly speak to it as if it can fully understand the words you’re saying, as if they might answer you? The majority of Sermo doctors admitted to doing so:
“Of course I do. I think it would be weird if you did not talk to them. They don’t understand the actual words but they do understand tone, body language, inflection, individual elements of the sounds.” – Neurology
“I talk to my dogs in several ways. There is the command language, which they understand quite well. In fact, the big one understands the spoken words as well as sign language and whistle commands. If I say “sit” or hold up my index finger or whistle twice, he sits. Then there are the regular conversations which they don’t really understand for the most part. If I tell them they stink or they are lazy and why don’t they do some vacuuming, then they mostly just look at me funny.” – Neuromusculoskeletal medicine
“I only talk to my dogs in my ‘dog voice’. It’s the voice that says ‘Who”s a good boy? Did you miss me? Yes, you did, didn’t you!!’” – Physical Medicine
“I don’t just talk. I sing to my dogs. I sing musicals, pop songs, made up songs.” – Internal Medicine
“As a psychiatrist, I opine that it’s perfectly fine to talk to your pets. Clinically speaking, the problem is when your pets talk back to you :)” – Psychiatry
“I talk to my dog all the time. Even though I know I’m the back of my head he doesn’t understand me, I find the whole process therapeutic.” – Psychiatry
“I used to think it was silly to talk to an animal as if it was human, but I have found that it’s an extremely hard habit to avoid. I think there’s something just simply natural about it.” – Family Medicine
Are you a physician who wants to join the #1 global social network for doctors? Join Sermo to share your experiences with other doctors from around the world!