Telephone Inventor
Alexander Graham Bell and The Talking Dog Few figures in history have gotten as many people talking as Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone. However, not many people know that years before he entered the history books by making the first phone call on March 10, 1876, Bell accomplished another remarkable feat when he taught his pet Skye Terrier to say “How are you grandmama?” For the record, Bell’s pet uttered this phrase on command, in English -- not “dog speak!” Bell was only 20 years old when he trained his dog to talk. This was no parlor trick. The young inventor, did this to prove his theory that deaf people could be taught to speak words with proper pronunciation by being shown how to position their tongues and lips, even though they had never heard anyone speak before, and therefore couldn’t imitate spoken sounds as other people do when learning to talk. To demonstrate his point, Bell decided to train his pet how to form words. He did this by first teaching the little terrier to hold a long growl on command. Then he physically moved his dogs lips to form the desired vowel and consonant sounds, rewarding his pet with treats as they went along. It wasn’t long before the smart pet caught on, and moved his mouth to form the sentence without Bell’s help. Soon a string of visitors was descending on Bell’s house to see the little dog sit up on his hind legs and say “How are you Grandmama?” Bell, who owned dogs throughout his life, went on to become a well-known speech teacher for the deaf, opening his own school in Boston. In his spare time, he worked on ideas for inventions, one of which would revolutionize the world as the telephone. Think about that next time you leave a message for your pet on the answering machine! IF YOUR DOG COULD TALK ON THE PHONE, HE’D CALL YOU NOW AND SAY, “PLEASE TAKE ME TO PET SUPPLIES “PLUS”   |