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‘Nazis tried to teach dogs to talk and read – and claimed one could even discuss religion. Hitler, a well-known dog lover, hoped the animals would learn to communicate with their SS masters, and supported a special dog school set up to teach them to talk. Nazi officials recruited so-called educated dogs from all over Germany and trained them to tap out signals using their paws. The dog school was called the Tier-Sprechschule ASRA and was based near Hanover. Led by headmistress Margarethe Schmitt, it was set up in the 1930s and continued throughout the war years.
‘Rolf, an Airedale terrier, reportedly ‘spoke’ by tapping his paw against a board, each letter of the alphabet being represented by a certain number of taps. He was said to have speculated about religion, learnt foreign languages, written poetry and asked a visiting noblewoman: ‘Could you wag your tail?’ The patriotic dog even expressed a wish to join the army – because he disliked the French. A Dachshund named Kurwenal was said to speak using a different number of barks for each letter, and told his biographer he would be voting for Hindenburg. And a German pointer named Don imitated a human voice to bark: ‘Hungry! Give me cakes.’
‘But do dogs really talk? Back in 1912 Harry Miles Johnson of Johns Hopkins University said, emphatically, “no.” In a paper in Science, he generally agreed with the findings of Oskar Pfungst of the Institute of Psychology at the University of Berlin who studied a dog famous for its large vocabulary. The dog’s speech is “the production of vocal sounds which produce illusion in the hearer,” Johnson wrote. Nothing in the last century has really changed that scientific opinion.
‘It’s more appropriate to call it imitating than talking, says Gary Lucas, a visiting scholar in psychology at Indiana University Bloomington. Dogs vocalize with each other to convey emotions—and they express their emotions by varying their tones, he says. So it pays for dogs to be sensitive to different tones. Dogs are able to imitate humans as well as they do because they pick up on the differences in our tonal patterns.
‘Owner hears the dog making a sound that resembles a phrase, says the phrase back to the dog, who then repeats the sound and is rewarded with a treat. Eventually the dog learns a modified version of her original sound. As Lucas puts it, “dogs have limited vocal imitation skills, so these sounds usually need to be shaped by selective attention and social reward.” Scientists have made some progress in their study of this important subject: They’ve learned why dogs, and other animals, have rather poor pronunciation and, for example, completely botch consonants.
‘Dogs “don’t use their tongues and lips very well, and that makes it difficult for them to match many of the sounds that their human partners make,” Lucas says. “The canine alphabet differs significantly from ours, featuring a fraction of our consonants (b, f, h, p, r, w, and sometimes y) and the rounder vowel sounds, which are more “sung” than “spoken.” Words are therefore primarily distinguished by minor variations in pronunciation (dogs can differentiate twelve types of r sounds and five degrees of hardness in the letter b).”‘ — collaged
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p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi, D! I think you’ll love the Dlugos book. It’s big fun. You mean how old was I when I did the regression ceremony? Hm, maybe 13? I’m not positive. I think you need to be really sure you want to be on LSD and in the right circumstances before you take it because it’s pretty intense and, at least in my case, it can totally change your way of seeing the world and yourself. Granted, I took a lot of LSD, and it was the 60s when LSD was a lot purer than it usually is now. I started taking psychedelics at around 13, I think. But I didn’t go hog wild with them until I was 15, 16. Of course I’ve never seen ‘Csillag születik’ or really know what it is, but I looked it up and hoped the idea of him being on it was sufficiently wrong/funny. Oh, that’s so sad about the love you propose. Poor thing. Love transfiguring itself into a hit of LSD so you could safely take it, G. ** David Ehrenstein, Funny thinking of Tim as a Total Babe. Oh my god, Jacob Collier makes my skin crawl. Upside down crucifix and garlic cloves betwixt that link and me. Yes, RIP Cloris Leachman. So great. She deserves immortality just for her ‘Young Frankenstein’ turn. Ha ha, thank you for proposing that movie role for me. I am so extremely the opposite of John’s type however, I can assure you, but if he asked, I would do his bidding. ** Matthew Stadler, Hi, Matthew! How awesome to see you in here! I was shocked/thrilled to find that super early Tim/Brad reading too. I remember when you worked for him. I remember going to some pretentious rich gay guy’s party, probably with Tim and maybe Edmund White, where you were pretend-bartending and where he made you stay in the kitchen even though you were a writer while the guests, who were all gay lit authors or types, talked culture or whatever, and I was completely outraged by that bullshit hierarchy, and I think I even left the party because it pissed me off so much. Anyway, hi! ** Misanthrope, I believe you. Well, you were kind of rubbing it in, dude. Yeah, it’s so bad in the UK. I’m so fearful that we’ll end up like that too. Macron will make his decree in that regard tomorrow night. Scary Strokes is a promising name. We don’t have places like that open here. How teenaged pothead-like of David. But if the shoe fits and all of that. ** Bryan Borland, Hi, Bryan! Thank you very much for gracing my blog. Listen, it’s an honor to do a little part in making people a little more aware of Tim’s great book that great you so kindly published. My total pleasure. Much respect and thanks to you. ** _Black_Acrylic, It’s a blast. Hope your class went well, and I’m obviously happy you’re feeling wordy and revved up. ** Jeff J, hi, Jeff. It’s a wonderful book. Thanks about the recent blog. Oh, shit, so sorry about the mysterious recent life maladies. Stoicism and muddling sounds like a plan, and may things take a seismic shift ASAP. I did a Bas Jan Ader post ages ago, but I’m not sure if I’ve restored it. I’ll check. He’s one of my favorite artists. I haven’t heard any recent Zorn, probably for the reasons that you and Steve lay out. He’s been off my radar for no understandable reason. I’ll go get ‘Baphomet’ and start rectifying his absence from my head. Thanks, man. I hope today is your turnaround day. ** Jack Skelley, Hey, J. Yeah, great old Tim, and, yeah, David T. is saintly. It did sometimes seem like Tim was right about everything even when he definitely wasn’t. Morning, buddy. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Is the reason Zorn is squirrelling his work away thusly for the obvious anti-consumerist sort of reason? It seems more self-destructive than anything maybe. I’ll def. find and watch that Dutch documentary. Thanks a bunch. New song! Everyone, Mr. Erickson says … ‘I wrote this song over the past 3 days, taking almost all the sounds from a huge pack of orchestral samples that I recently downloaded (although I wrote my own melodies and chord progressions using them). I am thinking of writing a string quartet using the same sample pack for my next song.’ Hit it, folks! ** Bernard, Well, hello there, Bernard. A rare and great pleasure. Yes, yes, about Tim. Beautiful words. Yours. I saw that Richard McCann died. I never met him, but I remember you speaking about him to me a fair amount. And Cloris Leachman, of course, kind of a total genius. I often wonder why Cecily Tyson did so little work. I feel like she very rarely was in films. Or maybe she was in a bunch of things and they just weren’t things I would ever think of watching. I will very excitedly go read your poems! Wow, even! Everyone, Ultra-superb poet and dude Bernard Welt has new poems up on the site/mag Court Green, and getting to read his poems is a rare occasion, so I think you might really want to go do that. Read his poems, I mean. Here. Happy you’re writing duh, and that interesting stuff is being magnetised by you. Paris is still great, although this is not necessarily the funnest time to be here, but … maybe by the summer? Please dear god? Hugs, B! ** Bill, I feel pretty certain that you will like and even really like Tim’s book. Congrats on surviving. Teaching what you’re teaching, if I understand what you’re teaching, via Zoom or whatever must be really hard. I have a friend who teaches painting at Cal Arts, and she says trying to teach/advise young painters online is the borderline height of absurdity. How do you think your classes are going so far? ** Right. You’ll probably think I’ve lost the plot, but I decided the other day that it was imperative that I restore the post today. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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You haven’t lost the plot at all! This post is super timely for me. Recently I’ve been taking a deep dive into the work of B.F. Skinner. He preferred to experiment on rats rather than dogs because rats are cheaper, dumber, and more resilient in confinement. My Skinner reading is part of a broad research project that has yet to coalesce into anything but has probably accumulated enough material for a potpourri guest post.
The Dlugos post was an eye-opener. I’ve never been a big reader of letters or diaries but I’m starting to see the appeal. Could be good Hebrew practice to write frank accounts of Tel Aviv and its art scene with a distant-future reader in mind.
A few weeks ago I was griping here about the lack of access to video art online. I started hunting around a bit and found that eflux magazine posts free video art for limited time periods. I recommend “The Blood of Stars” by Raqs Media Collective. It’ll only be available through Tuesday.
https://www.e-flux.com/video/370163/raqs-media-collective-nbsp-the-blood-of-stars/
@MatthewStadler I read your farewell blog post. Sounds like an interesting experiment you did with the Mechanical Turk. The attention you called to the word “browsing” lit a lightbulb in my head to contrast the literal and internet meanings of “browsing” vs. “feeding”: livestock moving about and eating brush vs. standing still and eating grain from a trough.
Do you have any suggestions about how to curate an art show? I’ve never done anything like it. I have two talented and under recognized artist friends whose work I think would go well together in a duo show. I figure start preparing now and aim for a time period when the pandemic is over and there are lots of empty storefronts but the economy hasn’t fully recovered yet.
Hi Corey, Thanks for noticing my “The End” stuff on http://www.matthewstadler.org I know very little about curating visual art shows. Dennis knows a lot, and I bet that others on this site know a lot, too. But not me. My world is 98% text and music.
Even to a dog-fearer such as myself, I can see these are some loveable pooches right here.
The new episode of Play Therapy is online here via Tak Tent Radio! Ben ‘Jack Your Body’ Robinson brings you Synth-Pop, Electro, Acid House, some heavily psychedelic Dub and all sorts of other stuff besides that as well.
Dogs and cats don’t need to speak in order to communicate with humans. Our cat is in constant teepathic apport with us. His needs are few and his love is boundless.
Hey Dennis – Enjoyed the post and a nice unexpected move for the blog. Had no idea about the Nazis being so invested in trying to teach dogs to talk.
Very curious what you’ll think of Zorn’s ‘Baphomet’ and any other new ones by him you check out. It seems like he’s a fertile creative period, even as the work has fallen off the critical radar. Interesting time to dig deeper, in any case.
Are you a fan of Susan Howe’s work? If so, you have any favorites? I seem to recall some of her collections appearing in yearend round-ups, maybe there’s a post on her? Someone recently gave me ‘Trusts of Europe,’ a collection of her mid-period work and ‘Singularities.’ Some of it is immediately dazzling and working to wrap my head around other parts of it.
Thanks about things turning around soon.
Hi!!
Hahahaha, well, this is definitely a post I didn’t see coming! How sweet. I love dogs, whether they say “I love you” or not.
I’ve had very profound experiences with/on mushrooms. For some reason, I feel like it’s more for me – maybe because I’m always prepared for shorter trips, I don’t know. The first time I tried it, I realized it was the most potent tool to fight my death anxiety. Or fight isn’t even the right word. To smooth it, more like.
I’ve never watched “Csillag születik” either, but I’ve seen enough of it to know that they’re not prepared for someone like Darby Crash, haha.
Thank you; that’d be perfect! I’d feel 100% safe to take that! Love like the Jeffrey Lewis song “The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane,” Od.
Dennis, Yay! about the archived Poetry Project bit. I’ve already sent the link to a few friends who are interested but missed it.
Okay, full disclosure: I was rubbing it in a bit. At the same time, just going to a place is rubbing it in? You know what I mean? What the fuck is going on in the UK? Yikes. Most places here are opening up. Even places like NY, Chicago, LA, and Boston are talking about reopening restaurants, bars, and schools very soon. I don’t really get the sudden change, but if they think that’s best, then go ahead.
Shit, just remembered I gotta get a blood test tomorrow morning. Don’t feel like it, hahaha. Just regular checkup stuff. Ugh. Otherwise, it’s Scary Strokes for the win.
Latest FaBlog: Marjorie Faith Domergue
Dennis of Iniquity: I once met a man (on the bus) who told me his chihuahua pre-alerted him to the Northridge earthquake. The dog woke him up saying, “God dammit! God dammit! God dammit!” I enjoyed Steve’s song and Bernard’s poems. Naturally… Thanx, all !!
These dogs are so adorable that it’s a buzzkill to learn that the effort to get them to speak began with the Nazis.
Here’s my review of PRESENT.PERFECT for Screen Slate: https://www.screenslate.com/articles/478 and my new Spotify playlist, “Guided Tour Through a Dark Forest”: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2YW6oestGLjONOVKqLnovg
Zorn isn’t making an anti-consumerist statement by keeping his music off streaming. In fact, he’s trying to make money. He said that when he put the entire Tzadik catalogue on Spotify, it only earned $300 in 6 months while CD sales went down. The nature of many of their projects – BAPHOMET is a single 39-minute composition – doesn’t allow him to select one song as a single for placement there. But I’m perplexed why Tzadik is nowhere to be found on Bandcamp. How many people pay $19 for a CD without hearing the music first these days?
There’s a sequel to NOW DO YOU GET IT, which was made several years after its subject Joop’s death. THE PRICE OF SURVIVAL explores the inter-generational trauma caused by the Holocaust and the impact the damage done to Joop in turn had on his children.
I did write a string quartet, but it sounded awful. Now I understand why classical composers have formal training! I have switched up most of the instrumentation to electronic sounds and taken out many parts of the piece, and it seems much better, although I am still not done with it.
Do you know the producer Paul Marmota? He released a single, “ultima emocion,” today that really slams in a mid ’80s Neubauten vein: banging metal percussion, synth noises used as percussion, chopped-up vocals.
Hi Dennis,
Thank you for all the dogs and the beautiful post about Tim Dlugos! Dinner was a success! Afterwards I spent some time ordering the exact edition of the cryptozoology book I referenced having as a child. I think I’m figuring out a good angle for an attempt at a piece – thank you for the kind words.
Cold sesame noodles are one of my absolute favorites as well – something I remember having for the first time probably from the joint Hare Krishna / Food Not Bombs free lunches in college. There’s a brunch restaurant located inside an old vintage store in my city and it serves a buffet of cold salads and slightly-stale coffee cakes – like if someone wanted to do a theme restaurant where the theme was “potluck at a co-op punk house.” They always have a cloyingly-sweet bowl of sesame peanut noodles which is the underrated star of the show.
That’s so cool to hear about that scene being filmed- poor Rico! It was very impactful. I do deeply love going to warehouse/artspaces and underground clubs for DIY shows and electronic music – I miss it terribly. I was supposed to play an all-night warehouse party here the weekend that things shut down and had chances to play with Hiro Kone, Bookworms, etc all fall through from the shutdowns across the US. Who were some of the best acts you saw in the last year before COVID? I think for me it was probably between Dungeon Acid, Dreamcrusher, Limited Network and probably this electric free jazz combo (whose name escapes me now) that played in a hallucination-inducing hot warehouse my first week in town.
My writing exists somewhat between DIY electronic music writing and anarchist writing, somewhat back and forth depending on the project. I am going to attempt a longform zine for the label in the coming months surrounding rave culture, illegality, autonomy and egoist anarchism. I just had a new cassette and zine come out today, I’ll set one aside for you. Have a great weekend!
I’ve been coming here for years looking for talking dog and absurd Nazi experiment content and I got them both on the same day.
I Love You!
B