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Elsie the cat has a set of 120 buttons programmed with words. She uses them to lie, swear, apologise, express grief and frustration and love to her human, the author Mary Robinette Kowal, who talks about what's involved in learning to communicate via language buttons with companion animals. And animal behaviour expert Zazie Todd explains how animals might be interacting with human language.
This is the first half of a two-parter: in the next episode, some talking dogs - and their humans - come to visit, and we hear about the kinds of things you find out about what your animal friend is really thinking, and how it changes the ways you communicate with other humans too.
Content note: this episode contains a few category B swears.
Mary Robinette Kowal the human and Elsie the cat make eye contact while sitting on the floor with their button boards and my microphone.
EXTRA MATERIALS:
You wait [insert amount of time here] for a podcast about companion animal communication, and two come along at once! Our friends Twenty Thousand Hertz have just released a pair of episodes about dogs and cats communicating, which I haven’t listened to yet so any overlap is coincidental, but I know they’ll be good because the show always is.
Alumsionist Arlie Adlington also produced this show about magpie communication.
A recently published academic paper: How do soundboard-trained dogs respond to human button presses? An investigation into word comprehension.
The button system Elsie and Mary Robinette use is from Fluent Pet. I have no affiliation with them, but if you want to buy any, Elsie’s discount code ELSIEWANT gets you 12% off.
The American Psychological Association’s Human-Animal Interaction section.
Though he was there the whole time, you only hear one sentence from husband Martin in the episode - but here’s a whole video with him explaining our VERY useful diagramming system for planning the preparation and cooking of big meals such as might be happening imminently for American Thanksgiving. (This is not related to animal communication, unless your cat is standing scornfully on the kitchen worktop saying, “You’ll never have enough space in the oven to cook stuffing AND roast potatoes.)
To help fund this independent podcast, take yourself to theallusionist.org/donate and become a member of the Allusioverse. You get regular livestreams with me reading from my ever-expanding collection of dictionaries, inside scoops into the making of this show, and watchalong parties - coming up, we've got A Room With A View, Carol, Cold Comfort Farm and Hot Frosty. And best of all, you get to bask in the company of your fellow Allusionauts in our delightful Discord community.
YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
nomological, adjective:
relating to or denoting natural laws which are neither logically necessary nor theoretically explicable, but just are so.
Derivatives: nomologically, adverb.
Origin 19th century: from Greek nomos 'law' + - logical (see -LOGY).
CREDITS:
Mary Robinette Kowal is a writer, cohost of the podcast Writing Excuses, professional puppeteer, and multi-award-winning novelist. Her upcoming book The Martian Contingency is available to preorder; find her work at maryrobinettekowal.com. And see her videos of Elsie (and sometimes Guppy the dog too) using the buttons on her YouTube and Instagram.
Zazie Todd PhD is an animal behaviour expert and author of books including Wag, Purr, and her latest, Bark, the Science of Helping Your Anxious, Fearful or Reactive Dog. Find out more about her work at companionanimalpsychology.com.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, on the unceded ancestral and traditional territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
Martin Austwick also produced this episode, and composed the music. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch.
Thanks to Erika Ensign, Scott Newman and Jenny Mills from On Air Festival, and Mary Robinette Kowal’s family Ken Harrison, Rob Kowal, and Jamie and Steve Harrison.
Find the Allusionist at youtube.com/allusionistshow, instagram.com/allusionistshow, TikTok @allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, @allusionistshow.bsky.social… Essentially: if I’m there, I’m there as @allusionistshow. I’ll be posting some photos and videos from the time we spent with Mary Robinette and Elsie.
Back in two weeks with Lexicat (And Dogs) part 2!
- HZ.
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