Speak!

This is coolbert:

"fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!"

The dog-o'-war!

Here with the type of headline that catches your attention right away, but is in actuality a much-to-do about nothing!

Speaking dogs - - war dogs - - trained by the Germans to "speak" and wage war as soldiers, NOT as an adjunct to the common human soldier, but as a "soldier" in their own right!!

NOT SO FAST!!

"Hitler tried to create an army of 'speaking' dogs!"

The German, holding a firm belief that dogs were almost if not as intelligent as humans desiring to create an army of dogs, to wage war on their enemies.

"the Germans viewed canines as being almost as intelligent as humans and they attempted to build an army of fearsome 'speaking' dogs."

Dogs NOT SPEAKING OF COURSE AS A HUMAN - - DOGS NOT POSSESSING THE VOCAL CORDS, LIPS AND TONGUE OF A HUMAN, BUT TAPPING OUT MESSAGES WITH THEIR PAWS!!

"Nazi officials recruited so-called educated dogs from all over Germany and trained them to speak and tap out signals using their paws."

"One mutt was said to have uttered the words 'Mein Fuhrer' when asked who Adolf Hitler was. Another 'spoke' by tapping letters of the alphabet with his paws and was said to have speculated about religion and learnt poetry."

This belief on the part of the German that animals, in this case dogs, are intelligent and CAN communicate with humans has a precedent? I am thinking of the "talking horse" - - Clever Hans.

"Clever Hans was an Orlov Trotter horse that was claimed to have been able to perform arithmetic and other intellectual tasks."
 
A horse, reputed to be able to do mathematical calculations and provide answers to simple equations. But not true! Merely a horse responding to cues and subtle "communications" inadvertent, from a trainer! NOT SPEAKING!

"After a formal investigation in 1907, psychologist Oskar Pfungst demonstrated that the horse was not actually performing these mental tasks, but was watching the reaction of his human observers."

We must understand that the German not only believed that Clever Hans and these various dogs were speaking and had the intelligence of a human, BUT WANTED TO BELIEVE THAT IT WAS SO!

As with most ideas of this sort, it all comes to naught, and for good reason too! Humans believe what they want to believe, facts be damned! And fool you twice, shame on you! YES!

coolbert.