WASHINGTON — When your dog says “Woof,” you hear an eager, “Let’s take a walk.” And your cat has a certain entitled meow that you know means, “Put more food in my bowl — now!”
You are not alone.
Sixty-seven percent of pet owners say they understand their animals’ barks, purrs and other sounds, according to an Associated Press-Petside.com poll released Wednesday. In a finding many parents of teenagers might envy, 62 percent of owners say that when they speak their pets get the message.
“I speak to her on limited subjects and she does the same with me,” said Stephen King, 63, of Kempner, Texas, who claims to understand his dog Dagny’s repertoire of barks signaling anger, eagerness, contentment and other feelings. “Common sense works 98 percent of the time.”
King is among the one-fifth of owners who said in the poll that they and their pets understand each other’s sounds completely. Older and lower-income people are especially likely to say they and their pets get the message.
Dog owners prevail over cat people when it comes to claims of successfully speaking to their animals: Three in 10 dog owners think their pets are baffled when they speak to them, compared with nearly half of cat owners who say the same.
When it comes to communicating in the other direction, cat owners do better. Twenty-five percent say they understand those meows, compared with 16 percent of dog owners who claim to be fluent in barks.
Jane Starring, 48, of Barrington, R.I., says her family is confounded by their cat, Flannel, who often chases people about the house meowing.
“We’re not sure we’re making much progress understanding him,” said Starring. “I don’t know what his point is.”
William Miller, a professor of veterinary medicine and medical director of Cornell University’s Companion Animal Hospital, says it’s not unusual for owners and pets to understand some of each other’s speech. He said animals and people learn to communicate over time by associating sounds with actions, such as a particular bark when a dog wants to go out or the soothing tone many people use when petting cats.
“It’s not like you’ll sit down and have a U.N. conversation with them” spoken in different languages, Miller said.
The AP-Petside.com poll was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs &Media from Dec. 3 to 8 and involved phone interviews with 1,129 randomly chosen pet owners. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
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