‘Dog-speak’ important for human-canine relationship
The finding could help owners form close ties with their pets.
‘Dog-speak’ is as important for the human-canine relationship as ‘baby-talk’ is for the bond between parent and child, according to a study by the University of York.
The study, published in the journal Animal Cognition, found that ‘dog-speak’ improves canine attention and could help humans form close ties with their pets. Scientists hope the research will be useful for pet owners interacting with their dogs, as well as for veterinary professionals and rescue workers.
Previous research into the human-canine bond found that talking in a high-pitched voice with exaggerated emotion improved puppy engagement, but made little difference to adult dogs. To test this theory, scientists at York designed new experiments to see if social bonding between animals and humans was influenced by this sort of communication.
Contrary to previous research, the scientists placed humans and adult dogs together in the same room, instead of playing human speech over a loudspeaker. This was a more natural set-up and helped the team assess the dog's motivation to spend time with the person that spoke to them.
The team conducted a series of tests, where the dogs were given the chance to listen to one person using dog-directed speech. This included phrases like ‘you’re a good dog’ and ‘shall we go for a walk’. There was also another person using adult-directed speech with no dog-related content, such as ‘I went to the cinema last night’.
After being spoken to, the dogs were allowed to choose which speaker they physically interacted with. The speakers then mixed dog-directed speech with non-dog-related words, to allow the scientists to see if it was the high-pitched or emotional tone that dogs were attracted to, or the words themselves.
“We found that adult dogs were more likely to want to interact and spend time with the speaker that used dog-directed speech with dog-related content than they did those that used adult-directed speech with no dog-related content,” said PhD student Alex Benjamin from the University of York’s department of psychology.
“When we mixed-up the two types of speech and content, the dogs showed no preference for one speaker over the other. This suggests that adult dogs need to hear dog-relevant words spoken in a high-pitched emotional voice in order to find it relevant.”
The BSAVA has opened submissions for the BSAVA Clinical Research Abstracts 2026.
