It had to happen. A talking dog.


Yula, a two-year-old Staffordshire terrier from Russia, addresses her owners by name and politely asks for dinner.

Owner Vladimir Lyubaev says Yula started calling his wife 'mama' a year ago. "She would say 'food mama' when he was hungry and my wife was there, and 'food Roma' when my son Roma was there," said Lyubaev. "She started saying mama when she was a year old - who knows what she will be able to manage when she is older still."

"Even Russian kids have trouble with the letter 'r', but Yula managed to learn to pronounce it. And she is still so very young."

Sceptical journalists dispatched to the village of Kushnarenkovo, in the republic of Bashkiria, confirmed the dog did appear to talk.