How one alien and one trail of trust taught me what canine communication could look like
A Movie About Connection
There’s a moment in E.T. that still gives me chills, even after all these years.
Not the flying bicycle. Not the glowing finger.
It’s the part where E.T. points to the sky, touches his chest, and says, in that halting voice:
“E.T. phone home.”
Because that’s not mimicry. That’s communication.
He isn’t repeating a word he was taught. He’s trying to be understood. He’s using the tools he’s been given to share something personal, something urgent, something real.
And when I look at Lady Priscilla — the way she stares at the kitchen to ask for dinner, or nudges my mouse to get my attention, or invents new games to tell us what she needs — I realize:
That’s what she’s doing too.
She’s phoning home.
Reese’s Pieces and Rescue Dogs
But before E.T. ever said a word, there was a trail.
A scared alien, crouched in the shadows.
A quiet boy with an open heart.
And a handful of Reese’s Pieces, gently dropped like breadcrumbs through the woods.
That was the first communication.
Not with words, but with invitation.
With space, patience, and hope.
And that’s exactly how we began with Lady Priscilla.
She was shut down when we brought her home. Not fearful — frozen. Not ready. She kept her distance, even indoors. Wouldn’t approach. Wouldn’t engage.
So we didn’t call her. Didn’t coax.
We just started tossing treats, one at a time, like Reese’s Pieces on the floor.
Not toward her. Near her.
Not as a command. As a choice.
At first, she didn’t budge. Then one day, she stepped forward. A few inches. Then a few more. Eventually she was close enough to eat from our hands.
That was her Reese’s Pieces moment.
Her first step toward trust — her first message.
She wasn’t asking for food. She was saying: “I want to be with you. But I need time to get there.”
That’s where communication really begins.
Not with cues or commands.
With safety. Autonomy. Just enough distance for a dog to choose you.
Because without safety, nothing else grows.
Just ask the flowers in E.T. — the ones that wilted when he was scared, and bloomed again when he felt safe.
That’s what Lady Priscilla did, too.
She didn’t need training yet. She needed time, trust, and warmth — and once she had those, she came back to life.
Naming the World
After the Reese’s Pieces, there’s another quiet scene in E.T. that sticks with me.
Elliott and E.T. are finally alone in his room. There’s no pressure, no expectation. Just a boy and an alien and a bunch of random objects scattered on the floor.
Elliott starts picking them up one by one, holding them out, naming them.
“This is a peanut. You eat it.”
“This is a lamp. It lights up.”
“This is a car. It goes vroom.”
He isn’t teaching E.T. tricks. He’s narrating the world.
Offering labels. Patterns. Meaning.
E.T. listens. Touches. Absorbs. You can see the gears turning — even if he hasn’t spoken yet.
That’s what we did with Lady Priscilla.
We didn’t rush into obedience or commands.
Instead, we just… named things.
- “This is Grandpa.”
- “This is the trash can.”
- “Find it.”
- “Tunnel.”
- “Store manners.”
We said the same words in the same contexts, over and over, until the patterns began to click. Until her ears perked up at “Find Grandpa,” and her body slowed when we whispered “store manners,” and she trotted proudly toward a random trash can in a brand-new park because she understood what we meant.
She wasn’t memorizing commands. She was building cognitive schemas — mental frameworks for how the world works.
Just like E.T., she was quietly mapping our language onto her experience, storing up meaning until she was ready to speak back.
This is where canine communication begins — not with performance, but with understanding.
With semantic modeling. With a brain that’s free to learn, and speak, because it no longer feels afraid.
When They Start Talking Back
There’s a moment later in E.T. when everything changes.
He’s learned the words. Watched the gestures. Made sense of the patterns.
And then, finally, he points to the sky, touches his chest, and says:
“E.T. phone home.”
It’s not mimicry anymore.
It’s intentional.
He’s taking the building blocks he was given and using them to express his own meaning — a thought that didn’t come from Elliott at all.
That’s the difference between dog obedience and canine communication.
Between following and participating.
Lady Priscilla does that too.
Just tonight, while I was typing this.
Dad was dozing in his recliner. The house was quiet.
She padded out from my room, surveyed the scene, and began orchestrating.
First, she nudged Dad’s foot — just enough to wake him.
Then she circled the coffee table and nudged my mouse, making the cursor flicker.
Once she had both of us aware, she stood squarely between us, giving each of us a pointed look until we started petting her.
When she was satisfied, she sat and stared at the kitchen.
Message delivered. Canine communication heard loud and clear.
That wasn’t coincidence or routine.
It was a deliberate, multi-step communication:
- Identify both humans.
- Wake each in a personalized way.
- Re-establish connection.
- Then signal the next request.
She didn’t bark.
Or demand.
She spoke through behavior, sequencing cognition, emotion, and social awareness into a single, cohesive message.
Cognition: She planned a strategy to achieve her goal.
Emotion: She sought connection first — food second.
Behavior: She executed it with clarity and control.
That’s the full CBT triangle working in harmony.
And it’s where real communication begins.
“First we showed her our world, and then she started showing us hers.”
She Has Something to Say
Once a dog realizes she can make herself understood, everything changes.
Most people stop at comprehension. The dog learns our cues, our words, our rules.
But the real magic begins when she starts using that shared language to express her own thoughts.
Lady Priscilla doesn’t fetch things to tell us what she wants.
She uses context, position, gaze, and timing — often with more precision than speech could offer.
When she stands between me and a doorway, tail relaxed but eyes intent, she isn’t blocking.
She’s saying, “Wait. Something’s off.”
When she takes two steps toward the car and looks back, it isn’t hesitation.
It’s a question: “Are we going together?”
When she faces another dog, pauses, and turns her back, it isn’t avoidance.
It’s emotional self-regulation — her way of saying, “I’m choosing calm.”
And when she invents new routines — the “step dance” before a walk, the snuffle-mat sandwich game, the way she puts two feeder puzzles together and does one with each paw — she’s not performing.
She’s initiating.
She’s showing agency, creativity, even humor.
It’s an advanced form of canine communication that becomes clear as day once you start to pay attention.
That’s the top half of the Maslow pyramid — the place beyond survival and security where learning turns into purpose.
In the Maslow-CBT model, safety builds trust, trust builds confidence, and confidence opens the door to cognition and choice. Lady Priscilla has climbed that ladder one calm, thoughtful decision at a time.
She no longer trains to please us.
She collaborates, negotiates, and even teaches. In many ways, the student has become the master.
“She didn’t just learn our words — she learned that her words matter.”
What E.T. Taught Me About Training Dogs
When I think back on E.T., it isn’t really a story about outer space.
It’s a story about connection — about what happens when two beings from different worlds take the time to learn each other’s language.
Elliott didn’t train E.T.
He didn’t issue commands or demand compliance.
Instead, he listened. He offered patience, consistency, and safety until understanding bloomed.
That’s what we did with Lady Priscilla.
We didn’t teach her to “obey.”
We built a bridge — one word, one cue, one look at a time — until thought itself became a conversation.
Most training programs focus on behavior: what the dog does.
But behavior is only one corner of the triangle.
When you add emotion and cognition to the mix, the picture changes completely.
- Cognition gives the dog the ability to think.
- Emotion gives her the freedom to feel safe enough to try.
- Behavior becomes the visible language that connects the two.
That’s the sweet spot where E.T. said “phone home,” where the flowers bloomed again, and where Lady Priscilla taught us that canine communication is valuable.
We didn’t heal her with food or force.
We healed her with trust.
And through that trust, she learned to heal us back.
That’s the real lesson E.T. taught me about dogs:
You don’t teach them to obey.
You teach them to believe you’ll listen.
And once they believe that, they’ll start to speak.
Want to read more of our literary inspired stories?
Find out how Lady Priscilla reminds us of Yentl, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Dead Poets Society, Stick It, and One Child.
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