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How Stella Learned to Talk review: Can a dog really talk?

By Chris Stokel-Walker

7 July 2021

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Stella likes a walk and purportedly also a natter

Christina Hunger

How Stella Learned to Talk: The groundbreaking story of the world’s first talking dog

Christina Hunger

Pan Macmillan

WHEN Stella, a chocolate brown dog, began moving around the house, Christina Hunger realised her dog was unusual. The 8-week-old puppy acted like the children that Hunger, a speech-language pathologist, worked with. “She was communicating how toddlers communicate right before they start saying words,” she writes in How Stella Learned to Talk, her book about her experiences with the dog.

Hunger asked a simple question: if dogs can understand words, what…

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