SAGA VOICES
Each month our insight team conducts an in-depth poll of Saga customers to find out what you’re thinking. This month: do you talk to your animals?
If you’ve ever caught yourself having an in-depth conversation with your cat about what’s on the news or the inconsiderate way your neighbour has parked his car, and felt you might be going slightly mad, be reassured: we’re all at it.
In our survey of Saga customers, 94% of pet owners talk to their animals. Not just cats and dogs either: 89% of reptile owners engage in chit-chat, as do 79% of tropical fish owners. It’s not recorded whether any meaningful replies were forthcoming.
What do we talk about? Cat owners tend to ask them questions, whereas dog owners are more likely to share daily experiences or express feelings. Some – 11% – even use their pet as a sounding board to complain about other family members. Around half use a special ‘pet’ voice, too – 52% of women and 41% of men.
Before you roll your eyes, this is not as mad or pointless as it sounds, explains Dr Alex Benjamin at York University. Her research with dogs has discovered that talking to our animals in a special voice (‘often happy, silly sounding, rhythmic and higher-pitched’) makes them more likely to pay attention, and also increases the affiliative bonds between human and animal – a bit like ‘baby talk’ with young children, which is proven to help them acquire language. ‘Some people feel ridiculous using that special voice, but research shows it encourages pets to want to spend time with us and we think this might be down to evolutionary preference among mammals for high-pitched tonal sounds,’ says Dr Benjamin.
She says dogs use a whole host of cues – body language, eye gaze, vocabulary and intonation – to make decisions about who to pay attention to. And they have a capacity to understand hundreds of words, she says, particularly border collies. Less is known about cats, although studies have shown they can manipulate their miaows to mimic a human baby’s cry when they want food. No real surprise there.
There’s lots left to learn about the bonds between pets and humans, says Dr Benjamin. ‘My colleague has two domesticated sheep that come when they’re called. It’s probably more possib
