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If like me, you have endless conversations with your occasionally confused best friend, this is the biggest question on earth. So here’s your answer…
I’m sure I’m not alone in sharing my biggest secrets in what often feel like rather one-way conversations…if you don’t include those eye-brow raises and side eyes they give us in return. But the question of whether they actually enjoy our chats has finally been answered by genuine research in the Animal Cognition journal.
And here’s the first piece of good news. Much like a human baby, that communication and interaction actually strengthens our attachment bond. In fact, the accurate translation of the words doesn’t even matter so much. It’s the tone and familiarity of our voice that they find calming. In fact, in studies in shelter dogs, those that were played audiobooks with human voices actually slept better and were more rested than those doggos that went without. In fact, human voices even out-performed music as a relaxation tool. So there you have it, talk lots and talk often. In fact, even words left playing when you’re away from home (through audiobooks, podcasts or recordings you make) could even help them handle that separation with more success.
So with all these podcasts and extra conversations, you can forget them being fixated on ‘park’ and ‘walkies’ as words of wonder. They’ll be right up to speed with politics, murder investigations and who must surely win The Bachelor!
