Meet Nova, a young German Shepherd from Behchokǫ̀ whose been learning commands in her official language.
Nova hasn’t even reached her first birthday and in just under a month she’s learned several commands such as “sit down”, “paw”, “come” and “go”.
She even knows which treat she’s about to get such as dry meat and dry fish.
Pamela Adzin is her owner and says with Nova learning Tłı̨chǫ, the whole family has started speaking to her in the language, and by extension learning some of the language as well, especially her children.
Adzin says although her parents speak fluent Tłı̨chǫ, over time she has lost her language but is taking this opportunity now through Nova to learn new words.
After posting a video of Nova over social media, she says the response has been positive as traditionally the dogs would have been spoken to in Tłı̨chǫ.
Adzin plans on teaching Nova new tricks and commands in the future and even hopes the dog can understand the language better than she does, she told CKLB with a laugh.
