When I used to hear about talking pets on TV or through friends, I would always scoff. I’m usually open to pretty much everything, but I figured that these people had to be making this stuff up. If a cat or dog can talk, why can’t all pets talk, I thought.

It turns out that these people must be onto something. A few weeks ago, our cat, Fuego, a very handsome tabby, surprised us all with a little bit of cat chat of his own. Fuego is about six years old, but we’ve only had him for two of those years, since we adopted him from the Humane Society. Since then, he’s proven to be a rather stereotypical lazy boy, and we adore him. But he also did something that made me scared out of my mind.

He talked.

At first, when we heard this strange, ungodly sound—a very guttural, groaning, “Nonononononono!”

We thought it was our daughter in her bed—and boy, was that scary. I was having Linda Blair visions and thinking oh boy, this is my payback for all those scary movies I’ve watched and books I’ve read. My husband and I just stared at each other for a full second until we realized this noise was then coming from beneath our bed.

I jumped up and peeked in at our daughter, who was sleeping fine, and then hovered in the doorway, demanding that he look under the bed. He did, and found Fuego puking his guts out.

He’d been puking a little that day—mostly hairballs—and we had talked about taking him to the vet the next day. Whether protesting the vet or the puke itself, Fuego let us know what he thought of the matter.

Honestly, it may have just been a trick of our human ears—simply a sound he made before being sick. He’s since made other noises that I once found to be regular old cat noises that I now interpret as “Hello” or some other human-speak. Maybe it’s just my ears.

But there are other pet owners who seem to have taught their pets a trick or two on how to speak. After reading an article recently on how dogs can pick up many things a two-year-old can, I’m left wondering if words might just be one of them.

What do you think? Do you have a pet that can speak? Check out the pets below and post what you think.