We’ve all heard people talking to dogs like they are small children. Some people find it cute, others consider it absurd, and there are also those who understand it implicitly. So what do we know about how humans talk to dogs?

Today On the Dogwatch we are joined by Bob Mitchell, head of the Animal Studies Program at Eastern Kentucky, who has researched just these kinds of questions. In our conversation, we consider where this kind of “baby talk” has been observed in humans and dogs, what we know about why people do it, and whether there is any evidence that it is more effective than other forms of communication with our dogs. In the end, we get a good sense of what we know–and even more what we don’t–about how we talk to our dogs.