I’ve long been in the habit of trying to talk to animals via mimicry. I’m surprisingly* good with cats, and learned to do the Lost Cat Locator Beacon long before I ever had a cat. Some cats, Yahweh most definitely included, will go into a call-and-response mode after a little while in a car carrier, especially if they’re the only cat in the car. Try it sometime, you might be surprised how easy it is to start getting them to mimic you in overall tone.
Chickens will sometimes do a similar thing, but they have a much shorter attention span than a captive cat. They can definitely be trained to respond to basic words/sounds, though. I know this because calling out ‘poultry’ or ‘hey, ducks’ gets me the undivided attention of the correct species for as long as it takes to throw a dollar’s worth of scratch and/or dried mealworms at them.
* I’m just absolutely terrible at voices, accents, that sort of thing.
When people express an interest in ducks, because they are so cute, I warn them that ‘water fowl’ is not an adjective, it is their entire job description. They are always so perfectly clean and dry, yet they are each their own little Superfund site in some Dorian Gray sort of way.
Also, only half as smart as chickens. On a good day.
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