Horses & Pigs can sense harsh speech

[skb]

How we speak matters to animals. Horses, pigs and wild horses can distinguish between negative and positive sounds from their fellow species and near relatives, as well as from human speech. This, according to new research in behavioral biology at the University of Copenhagen. The study provides insight into the history of emotional development and opens up interesting perspectives with regards to animal welfare.

Article

[bigskygal]

I do know when the neighbor's dog is barking at my cats, if I go out and talk soothingly to them they calm down and will come back up on the deck.

Reminds me of an episode of Frasier where Martin was saying how smart Eddie, his dog is, that he could understand words. So then the voice over says "blah, blah,blah Eddie, blah, blah, blah, Eddie, as what Eddie was hearing. So who knows??