If there is anything babies and dogs can bring into a home, it’s happiness.
And if Andrea Diaz-Giovanini’s video is any evidence, her family definitely has a happy home.
Andrea, a mother from Utah, had been trying to teach her son to say ‘mama’.
Like most mothers, she was excited about the occasion and was trying every method she could dream up. Eventually, growing tired of traditional tactics, the determined mother turned to good, old-fashioned bribery – and while her method worked, it was not in the way she anticipated.
The adorable dog Patch listens and immediately howls “mama” a few times.
It’s absolutely sweet, hilarious, and about the most loveable thing we’ve seen all day. Patch’s howl is also surprisingly accurate. This dog has quite the talent!
The pup also always kept his eyes locked on the food that Andrea was holding in her hand as if he wanted to claim the reward completely for himself.
Scientists have long been investigating canine brains to determine how much they understand human speech.
While many dog owners can attest to the fact that their dogs seem to understand different words, scientists wanted to put this to the test themselves.
In a study described by Popular Science, Hungarian researchers put dogs to the test. Humans regularly speak to (and around) dogs, which makes them a likely mammal to form connections with human words.
Using a bunch of fancy brain-measuring equipment, the researchers looked at 12 dogs’ brains (all of various breeds) while they played them recordings of nonsense words and syllables. To their surprise, surprise, the dogs were able to tell the difference between words that were played frequently and words that were only played once or twice.
But, not only that. According to the brain activity, the dogs could also tell the difference between complete words and their separated (or segmented) syllables, which seems to be proof of complex auditory processing. Equally fascinating is that dogs use the same part of their brains as humans to distinguish whether they were listening to full words or just broken syllables. One of the lead researchers in the study, Mariana Boros, said:
“This is the first time we show that a non-human mammal can do this.”
“[Dogs] can apply the exact same computation that infants are doing to segment the speech.”
Of course, understanding words is different from speaking words, and it’s unlikely that dogs will ever be as proficient at speaking as humans are (based simply on the fact that their tongues and lips don’t work the same as ours). But still, Patch’s imitation is impressive and he does seem to be coming pretty close.
The whole thing becomes even funnier when baby Sam realizes that Patch is trying to steal his spotlight.
Adorable!
Patch is a trained miniature Australian Shepard Dog and is incredibly loyal and trustworthy. He’s a very special member of the family, as Patch helped severely in the recovery process of the family’s grandmother who had suffered a brain injury due to a car accident. Whenever Patch feels that grandma could be having a seizure because of her injuries, he always alerts another family member right away.
A lot of people were a bit concerned about Patch’s appetite, as the video doesn’t show the pup getting rewarded for his speaking ability.
“That dog deserves more than just that bite of food after that!” one person wrote.
“Thank you for posting this :-) I really wanted to know if the dog was rewarded for being a genius,” another comment said.
“The dog was so desperately wanting the foods that he will do anything to please. And he definitely EARNS it fair and square! I hope the mom gave the dog the reward he needed, the dog is so adorable (and the baby too of course) that it almost cruel not to.”
Luckily, there was nothing to worry about. The couple posted a follow-up video on YouTube where you can see Patch finally getting the treat he deserves.
“For the many concerned individuals claiming that the dog from “Dog Says Mama, Baby Can’t” didn’t never got a treat, here is one brief clip of just one bite he got from that night,” the family posted.
The original video has quickly gone viral with nearly 15 million views on YouTube.
Be sure to check out the heartwarming and hilarious footage below. Talking dogs never disappoint!
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