Fellow--"A thoroughbred German Shepard
male, between 4 and 5 years of age" selected by his breeder who "sought to teach
him in various ways to understand human language in the sense of responding in
the appropriate manner to commands....this type of training is...especially new...but
Fellow..has been talked to constantly almost from birth in much the same manner
as a young child during the years of taking on language, and it was this fact
of the extensiveness of such experience and its possible effect on the dog that
made his case particulary interesting. Mr Herbert believes that Fellow has picked
up from this long contact mankind some four hundred or more words, and that he
understands these words in much the same manner as a child under the same circumstances
would. By the term "understanding" Mr Herbert seems to mean no more than that
definite associations have been formed between specific words on the one hand
and specific objects, places or acts on the other. p.16-17."
This remarkable result suggests that the roots of human language may go back to a common canine-hominid ancestor!
Arf! Arf!