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How Stella Learned to Talk cover art

How Stella Learned to Talk

Written by: Christina Hunger
Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon, Stella the Dog
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Publisher's Summary

An incredible, revolutionary true story and surprisingly simple guide to teaching your dog to talk from speech-language pathologist Christina Hunger, who has taught her dog, Stella, to communicate using simple paw-sized buttons associated with different words.

When speech-language pathologist Christina Hunger first came home with her puppy, Stella, it didn’t take long for her to start drawing connections between her job and her new pet. During the day, she worked with toddlers with significant delays in language development and used Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices to help them communicate. At night, she wondered: If dogs can understand words we say to them, shouldn’t they be able to say words to us? Can dogs use AAC to communicate with humans?

Christina decided to put her theory to the test with Stella and started using a paw-sized button programmed with her voice to say the word “outside” when clicked, whenever she took Stella out of the house. A few years later, Stella now has a bank of more than 30 word-buttons, and uses them daily either individually or together to create near-complete sentences.

How Stella Learned to Talk is part memoir and part how-to guide. It chronicles the journey Christina and Stella have taken together, from the day they met, to the day Stella “spoke” her first word, and the other breakthroughs they’ve had since. It also reveals the techniques Christina used to teach Stella, broken down into simple stages and actionable steps any dog owner can use to start communicating with their pets.

Filled with conversations that Stella and Christina have had, as well as the attention to developmental detail that only a speech-language pathologist could know, How Stella Learned to Talk will be the indispensable dog book for the new decade.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2021 Christina Hunger (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

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Truly inspiring!

This is such an inspiring story! As canine behavior specialist I’ve always thought and known that dogs have so much learning and communicating potential. Thank you Christina for sharing your story and am truly inspired to start intergrating some of your methods to my daily training with my dogs :)

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Wow!! Mesmerizing! Inspiring! Fabulous!

It is hard to do this book justice. In many ways, any dog owner knows that their fury family members understand a lot of what they are saying. Christina Hunger, had the brilliant idea of wondering if she could help her new puppy "talk" back to her. The story is riveting, heart warming and enlightening. I have listened to this twice already. A fascinating story, plus a great guide for anyone who wants to teach their dog (perhaps cats?) to "talk". How did I not know about Christina's work? Totally amazing. Thank you!

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Totally loved this book

What an awe inspiring book. I am thinking to try this with my dog. Thank you for this

Leslie

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Interesting and informative

Loved listening to this book. I found it so interesting and useful! I plan to teach my puppy to use buttons and this gives me so much more confidence! Thank you for telling your story and sharing this amazing discovery with us all!

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Thank you Christina Hunger

I simply loved this book!
Christina’s love for her profession spread so naturally to her fur baby!! It is simply fascinating!! Stella’s responses made me laugh and even cry once or twice! So touching what this precious pet expressed… I have a dog and know about the love that exists with a pet … Christina has brought this to another level !!

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Wonderful Book describes amazing experience

I’ve read (listen) this book in a day. Could not stop till reaching the back cover. Will certainly try a few buttons with my pooch … since I kept of feeling that she has a lot of things she would love to tell me about . After listening to an audio version, which had been narrated very well, I’ve got a hardcover too.

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Loved the connection between dog and human

I wish I had known about this 17 years ago when we got our Beagle. I could read him somewhat. Loved this book!

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Super useful

Used this when training my dog to use buttons and it’s so helpful and really opened my mind to how to have a better relationship with my dog.

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So interesting and inspiring!

Loved listening to Stella, Christina, and Jake's journey. It was so interesting to learn about Stella's progress and to imagine the potential that dogs have for communicating with huamns.

Christina did a great job of explaining her thought process, actions, and observations, and I also really enjoyed listening to the anecdotes about her work as a speech-language pathologist.

The narration was also excellent. This book is a memoire with some takeaways that dog owners can apply if they want to train their dog to use an aac, and it lends itself well to audio format.

Overall would definitely recommend, especially to animal lovers, or just people who enjoy learning, problem solving, or just hearing about something really cool.

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