Humans and animals understand each other even without words, that’s the beautiful thing! But our author wants more – and she takes various language courses dog and cat.
Test objects Bitch Leica and cat Lissi. But probably: Mistress Gitta.
Test goods Three apps that want to teach people animal language.
mission Fluent dog and feline.
This morning when we went for a walk we had another situation: I wasn’t fully awake yet, unfortunately Leica was. That’s why she noticed the car with the trailer much earlier than I did, tore the leash and yelped after the collapsible vehicle. This is one of Leica’s little quirks, which I don’t know whether it is only due to her fine herding dog hearing or whether there is something else behind it. Unfortunately, I can’t ask my Collie bitch. Rather: she does not answer. What is clear is that Leica has been reluctant, sometimes fearful, since she came to us as a puppy seven and a half years ago. And when she looks at me with her brown eyes, she looks almost a little sad … Or?
Communicate with dogs and cats via the app
What would I give in moments like this to be able to read Leica’s mind or just talk to her in doggie language – like my childhood film hero Dr. Dolittle, who could understand even 489 animal species. Even if Leica found out that she only thinks about food. Which is very likely. Or that she likes my husband better than me. What i’m afraid of.
I may be just a few clicks away from communicating with my dog because there are apps that promise to be able to translate dog language. Absurd? Delightful! I think of Loriot’s sketch in which the “talking” dog Bello is supposed to be interviewed by a television reporter. And while I’m already in the learning mode, I want to study cat language right away. Because we often see the wild Lissi, around 16 years old, silky fur, independent, stubborn – just a cat. And a being completely unknown to me, with whom I only “stroke me” and “hunger!” understand.
The “Pet Translator” app is designed to convert human language into meowing or barking. And because my bitch is walking up to me, I press the dog button on my display and ask into the microphone: “How are you?” The translation app spits out snarling, nasty barking tones. And? Leica licks its fur. Or is she listening? Second, purely rhetorical question: “Leica, do you like bones?” I accidentally press the cat button and get weird pussycat noises. Leica continues to devote itself to grooming. When trying to switch back to the dog translation, a lot of Chinese characters appear. Huh? I press the display, confused. Pling – suddenly there is an advertisement for a guitar learning app. I frantically type on the display … pling – advertising for an app that turns young faces into wrinkled old people … pling … pling … And where is Leica? Apparently my dog has had enough. I don’t yet. Because I spot Lissi on the terrace and the cat button is still there. I kneel next to our permanent guest and play several cat noises to Lissi. She looks at me, blinks like she always does. Pling – the aging app pops up again. Desperately I press the zoo button as a special gimmick of the “Pet Translator”. Wolf howls, cowboots, monkey screams. Now Lissi stirs, humps, twitches the tip of her tail and takes refuge in the garden. Damn.
Translation apps put to the test
Perhaps the second animal whisperer app will bring more success. I find Leica on our bedside rug in my favorite mode – asleep. Get to work: The “Dog Translator” can play the yapping of other dogs and also transmits my questions in Wuffs-Waffs-Woffs. Sounds funny. So I ask into the microphone: “Leica, am I your best?” But she doesn’t answer. Or does she think: I’d rather not say it? Then something harmless: “Why do you hate car trailers?” My cell phone is barking. Leica grunts, drops her head and closes her eyes. Understanding is different. I laughed anyway.
I have great expectations for the third app. Because the “Meow Talk” contains artificial intelligence and modern speech recognition technology, which is also used by the world-famous language assistant “Alexa”. The app is based on only eleven meow tones, to which the engineers assigned certain interpretations, such as “I’m hungry”, “Let me in”, “I love you”. The “Alexa” people expect me to record Lissis Miaus and give them an interpretation. The clever app wants to continuously upgrade Lissi’s individual vocabulary. I find our cat back on her terrace sunbathing place and play various meows to entertain her, but she doesn’t seem to be in a chatty mood. As soon as I hold my cell phone up to Lissi, she sniffs it and falls silent. Silence with her, despair with me. Then the mauzen, miezen, mozen seems to get on her nerves, she jumps up and flees into the garden. Just wait.
In the evening, hunger drives her back and I can finally record her demanding squawk. The “Meow” app offers the translation “Let me in”. Nonsense. I hit “change translation” and clicked “feed me” instead. But who knows, maybe my cat said, “Please give me the fish and not the disgusting chicken”? In the next few days I will save even more Lissi tones and want to play them to my husband as a countercheck, but suddenly the translator should cost. I think it’s basically okay, I just would have liked to know beforehand
Conclusion: “Such apps are pretty nonsense”
What was actually clear to me from the start: Such apps are pretty nonsense. I long for the honest analog world. Attending a dog school would certainly make sense to learn more about Leica’s thoughts. But Corona is also preventing that, and so I call Julia Sulzer from the BHV, the professional association of dog educators and behavioral advisors. When talking to the dog trainer, the advantage of a good dog school immediately becomes clear to me: I can use Leica very precisely there observe – how she deals with other dogs or communicates with me as the owner. “Trainers can then explain in specific situations what needs your dog has,” says Sulzer. Her general advice: “Don’t humanize the animal.” Oops. At that point in time, I had already asked the expert my partly flippant, partly serious question whether Leica would pass the “Abitur” because she understands about 20 other words in addition to seat, place, foot, paw. And Julia Sulzer had said rather evasively that there was once the border collie male named Rico who could distinguish 250 words. And Border Collie Chaser – who trained with his master until he could differentiate 1022 different toys by name …
Pah. Just don’t get frustrated. I dedicate myself again to the wild cat creature Lissi and hope for telephone support from the Berlin animal psychologist and animal healer Gabriele Zuske. I would like to know how she speaks to her cats herself, and she says: “With an interplay of tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures, but also treats, because you have to earn a little bit of affection from cats.” Cats and dogs, she explains, also pick up the finest, unconscious signals from us: “They record every single one of our muscle tensions, which they translate as warning or joy signals.” If I want to understand my animals, I rather have to check whether I rub off emotionally, for example when Lissi warms up because I’m stressed cleaning around the house, or Leica tries to get to my armchair when I am reading a book there in deep relaxation. In the future, I also want to observe more closely how Leica and Lissi react to their fellows. Because barking and meowing – they almost only do that for us stupid people. Among animals, it is more the tail movement, fixing with the eyes, baring teeth, yawning and raising the fur that counts.
So while Leica and Lissi have long understood human language, I am absolutely illiterate when it comes to understanding my clever animals. My look into the bronze-brown or green eyes is not enough. “In any case, animals don’t particularly appreciate looking at them for a long time,” says the animal psychologist.
Positive feeling when sniffing the holder
I ask the veterinary neurologist Dr. Konrad Jurina from the Hair Animal Clinic. He refers to a fascinating experiment by the US scientist Gregory Berns, who wanted to find out whether dogs love us masters or just the goodies we give them. To do this, Berns succeeded in training 20 dogs so that they not only voluntarily walk into an MRI scanner, but also linger there so that he could measure their brain activity. And because the dog navigates through his nose, he let the animals sniff various human smells and a number of dog smells. The result: when the dogs sniffed out their respective owners, the reward center in the brains jumped into action – in other words, a positive feeling indeed. And: They even prefer “their people” as conspecifics and see us owners as part of their family.
This news touches me, and when I look at Leica, I hope that the positive synapses in her brain also glow whenever she has me in her nose. With this silent wish I end my animal understanding experiment. I only leave Lissi to her mystery.
This article originally appeared in Barbara issue no. 06/2021.