Mishka’s a talking dog, or so they say. She can do a passing impersonation of a person saying “I love you”, as long as the person isn’t speaking too distinctly, is chewing a lot of gum, and happens to be a dog.
It’s a funny thing about talking animals, though — it’s a lot like listening to records backwards for hidden messages. It’s just random sounds until someone tells you what you ought to be listening for, and after that, it’s as clear as can be. You have to be primed.
Here, try this: Click on these links, but keep your eyes closed to avoid the priming (usually in the title). Is there any difference between the howls?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_6X0aRDGlg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki13JIVwMdk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKFS3YUP1lo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnYt_g9GjvI
Oh, well. Nice dog. She’s happy to vocalise. I just hope people aren’t taking this too seriously. But people took Alex and Victor seriously, and they were both just similar cases of pareidolia. So you can never be too sure.
11 May 2012 at 5:39 pm
I thought maybe she'd been trained to vocalize in specific ways, but she seems to be responding randomly. She doesn't even get the right number of syllables half the time. She's a very pretty dog though.