How Stella Learned to Talk

An incredible, revolutionary true story and surprisingly simple guide to teaching your dog to talk from speech-language pathologist Christina Hunger, who 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 this 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. Stella now has a bank of more than thirty word buttons, and uses them 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.

Author Biography

Christina Hunger is a speech-language pathologist who believes everyone deserves a voice. Inspired by her passion for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) and by her love of dogs, she uses her speech-language expertise to show how much dogs can say when given the opportunity to learn.

Christina received a B.A. in Communication Sciences and Disorders and a B.A. in Psychology from Case Western Reserve University, and a Master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology from Northern Illinois University.

She currently lives in beautiful San Diego, California with her fiance Jake and dog Stella. You can find them at the dog beach, hiking, going on road trips, caring for 30 houseplants, learning about the cosmos, and living intentionally.