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Surely you are wondering, I talk to my dog, will that be okay? Dogs just need to talk to be the perfect company. But with their gaze, with their gestures, they are capable of telling us many things. They look at you with their tender eyes when they know they have done something wrong; They look for you and fall on you when they want to eat, go for a walk or when they want you to pamper them.
And you, you answer them. You have authentic conversations with them that may not make sense to others. Therefore, they look at you suspiciously, as if you were crazy. ‘What are you doing talking to the dog?’ A question that, thanks to science, has a very forceful answer: ‘You are showing your overflowing intelligence‘.
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A professor of Behavioral Sciences at the University of Chicago, Nicholas Epley, has studied anthropomorphism for years, the process of granting human qualities to other species or objects. Anthropomorphization has been considered a childish or stupid sign, but in reality it is a trend that makes humans the most intelligent species on the planet.
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The human brain seeks to empathize and establish bonds with animals, talking to them as if they could get to answer us. Dogs have learned to process some human speech features, becoming able to recognize some of our words and our intonations and gestures. Animal intelligence is comparable to that of humans and can process speeches in a similar way to ours.
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So talking to your dog is not useless. Rather, it is a brain response of higher intelligences. And it is more common and older than it may seem: This practice, of talking to animals or giving them a known and familiar name, is more than ancient.
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It is even possible that technology eventually developed a device that translates the barking of dogs into understandable languages for the human being. And along the same lines, it is estimated that the 2027 is the year we can all have conversations with dogs.
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But what is a reality is that behind those phrases –sometimes, with a sharp tone– such as: How handsome my puppy is! Who loves you, ha, who, WHO? … there is more science and evolution than meets the eye. Therefore, do not feel sorry. And whoever looks at you strange, ignore him since you are infinitely smarter and smarter than him.
