WILL DOGS EVER TALK?

Evening Star, Issue 20985, 26 December 1931, Page 16

WILL DOGS EVER TALK?

LOLA-THE WONDER DOG OF MANNHEIM

A surgeon one© advanced the thoughtprovoking suggestion that by a simple operation on the larynx dogs might bo made capable of articulate speech. It is not improbable (writes Captain H. E. Hobbs, in the ‘Daily Mail’)- Even without such surgical assistance dogs have been able to produce sounds in passable imitation of the human voice. More than 200 years ago the eminent philosopher Leibnitz convinced the French Academy that dogs could talk. He was able to produce the dog of a Saxon peasant which, after tuition demanding prodigious patience, was able to repeat after his master thirty distinctly pronounced words. Since then a number of dogs have attracted notice by their ability to utter human words. The speaking powers of Jacqueline, a French bulldog, procured her columns of comment in America some two years ago; almost at the same time an Alsatian from North London was being extolled in England for its not unmusical rendering of ‘ God Save the King.’ Very wisely nobody attempted to invest these performances with any more intollectnal quality than sheer mimicry. The language of “ educated ” dogs—dogs for whom special reasoning or mathematical powers have been claimed—has invariably been the silent language of signs. At times such dogs have given sensational demonstrations. In 1830 two poodles from Italy were exhibited in Paris. In addition to solving problems in arithmetic they are reported to have been able to spell in French, English,' German, Latin, and Greek. Given a word in one of these languages they would go to a pile of wooden letters, select the correct ones, and arrange them in the right order to make up the selected word. Those who witnessed the performances were not all prepared to concede that the explanation was to be found entirely in reasoning power or knowledge of languages. Many—and they were probably right—regarded the displays as merely demonstrations of the degree to which an intelligent dog may be trained to a cod© of signals winks, nods, movements of hand or arm—imperceptible to the average onlooker. Even the most credulous, however, would at that time have laughed scornfully at a suggestion that a dog could possess such a degree of reasoning and conversational power as to be able to discuss with its owner the incidentals of human lifo and to lay baro the secrets of its doggy soul. Yet on such a possibility deep students of animal psychology are divided to-day, and the reason is ‘‘Lola, the wonder dog of Mannheim,” in Germany. Lola, an Airdale terrier bitch, born in January, 1914, was daughter of a German dog, Rolf, which bad distinguished itself by demonstrations of remarkable intelligence. In 1916 Lola was taken charge of by a woman psychologist, who, by methods of her own, proceeded both to instruct the dog generally, and to develop a language system of “paw raps” by which the dog might tab: to her. In a comparatively brief time the dog could count, add, subtract, and multiply figures, calculate money, and spell out words. It was taught later to tell time by the clock, to know the day of the week, to give at once the number of clays in any particular month, and to read the temperatures as well as to understand their bearing on bodily comfort. The dog found no more difficulty in indicating notes of music by their letter symbols than in recognising people by their portraits or rapping out the name of tho owner of an article shown to it. All this was merely preparatory to the main object—the investigation of doggy thought and feeling—but in this direction success was only partial. To questions on commonplaces, like food, cats, and puppies, Lola gave informative replies; but she would give no information on tho vital problem of why' dogs prefer the society of human beings to that of their own kind. Among the doggy things into which it is claimed Lola did give an insight is that the scent of human beings changes with their feelings—and that by this channel fear, tiredness, jealousy, and other moods communicate themselves to dogs. Before the ire of readers rises further at my supposed attempt to impose on their credulity, let me state that there is no question of Lola’s existence, ownership, and training;, and although conditions of war in Germany compelled the wide publication of her attainments to be delayed till 1919, she was independently tested and scientifically vouched for in the meantime. Only the conclusions of the mistress and not her sincerity have been challenged by the critics. She set out to demonstrate tho capacity of a dog for intelligent, coherent reasoning and selfexpression. Some authorities on the animal mind believe that she succeeded; others equally reliable maintain that all she did was to demonstrate canine capacity for receiving and reflecting the thoughts and opinions of human beings.