When our family dog was still around, we’d say, “Bird! Cats! Rabbits!” and she’d go right out of her mind.
Our youngest cat has to be greeted with “Happy Birthday!” multiple times daily. She just loves it.
We have three cats. The one who goes outside knows the words “want to go outside?”
The one who likes to sleep with me, on top of the blankets in the space between my legs, knows “want to have a sleep?” He’ll come running from anywhere in the house to have a nap with me.
The one who likes to hop up on my lap and crawl up my chest to cuddle with me like a baby, knows “up!”, which I say when she’s been there so long I have to move or fall asleep! And she gets up and jumps over my shoulder.
Our cat, Lucy, loves pizza. Say the word **Pizza ** and Lucy will run and wait at the front door for the delivery guy. It’s sad when I haven’t actually ordered pizza and she runs to the door anyway. Do they make pizza flavored kitty treats?
My family dog recognizes key concepts like “food”, “out”, “walk” and family members’ names. Also, going into the kitchen and opening the bread cupboard will have her at your feet in a nanosecond, whimpering and licking her chops. This is because, for some strange reason, Bea adores crispbread. She will eschew doggie treats, doggie chocolate, or smoked pork ears if it means she can get a whole piece of crispbread. Healthy habits and all that.
Another oddity is the word “Missä?” (“Where?”) When Bea was a puppy, I would often meet up with friends to take her for walks. I would say “Missä _____?” (Where’s _____?") when we were within sight of one of my friends. This would be the cue for Bea to perk up and start looking around her to find the mysterious _____. My friends would add to this little bit of fun by stopping in their tracks or hiding partly behind some nearby obstacle. Bea would then make her way slowly toward the place where my friend was hiding, and much fun and tail-wagging was had by all when she discovered the hidden compadre.
It still works. All I have to say is “Missä?” and Bea will immediately perk up and start to scope her surroundings. As a matter of fact, all I have to do is make a “m-sss” sound to trigger this response. Other sss words, like “kissa” (cat), have no such effect.
Not a word, exactly: one of my cats is completely fascinated by my flossing my teeth. He hears it, somehow, and comes over and stands in front of me watching intently, his little head turning back and forth.
We went through stages with Oscar and the word ‘treat’. He knows the word ‘treat’ now, so there’s no way we can say it unless he’s actually getting one. So we started spelling it to each other when we discussed whether or not he should get one so that he wouldn’t go nuts when he heard it.
He learned how to spell it.
So we started spelling it WRONG. ‘T-r-e-e-t’.
He learned that, too.
Now we’re on ‘turtle’, and he hasn’t yet figured that one out. But we’re expecting it any day now.
They both know ‘eat’, ‘dinner’, ‘mommy’, ‘daddy’, ‘give me some sugar’ (hey, I grew up Southern, leave me alone), ‘window’, and ‘night-night’. Oscar knows a few more words, but he’s a lot smarter than Emmy, too. He knows to give me kisses when I ask for them.
Emmy knows ‘potty’ because she has to be in the bathroom with me. She also seems to have a thing for the characters of Chiana and Rygel on Farscape - while I’m job-hunting, I’ve been watching a lot of Farscape DVDs. Anytime she sees Chiana (who’s blue) and Rygel (who’s a Muppet) appear on the screen, she watches intently until they’re gone, and then goes back to sleep. My cat’s in love with a damn Muppet.
But we still can NOT figure out the “Minty” thing. My husband’s made it a game when he comes home from work now…he just looks at her and says “Minty” to drive her into a frenzy. Nut. I’m starting to think it’s somewhat cruel.
E.
Hubby was reading something from a book to me one night, our dog was sleeping in my lap (as usual). For some reason, when he said “Protein” Jake popped up awake and stared intently. After retrying, we keep getting the same behavior. Hubby said that Jake decided he wants his name to be Protein, so we call him that a lot now, he’ll answer to it! 
Curious but does she have the same response when you say “Emmy”? Minty/Emmy could sound similar to her. (You did mention the cat’s name is Emmy)
We thought of that - she has a similar reaction, but not quite the same. When we say “Emmy”, she looks at us like, well, we’ve just called her name - it’s not the same excited, wide-eyed look she gets when we say “Minty” to her.
And I just tried it over and over again - she got to the point where she was ignoring me when I said her name, but “Minty” got an immediate reaction.
This is the weirdest damn thing I have ever seen!
E.
A family friend has a dog who goes crazy over the word “unavailable.” When the phone rings and the caller ID says “unavailable,” whoever gets to the phone first will yell out the word to let other family members know that they should not pick up the phone, but let the answering machine take the call.
At some point the dog picked up on this, and started going into a frenzy. She likes to play with empty milk jugs, and she would grab one in her teeth and fling it wildly from side to side, beating it on the floor until it was mostly flattened. She also runs up and down the hall and generally becomes hyperactive.
Now, all someone has to do is say “Un…” and she stops and perks up her ears, patiently waiting for you to say “available,” at which point she goes wild and crazy.
Interesting.
Have you tried: witty, kitty … (other words ending with “ty”)?
Curious indeed.
One of my terriers goes absolutely nutso if he hears the word “fly.” He looks for an actual fly, as he loves to catch and eat them. If we say butterfly, he hears the offending syllable and we get the same response. I don’t know how he connected the word with the flying things, but he knows what we are saying and he looks all over the house–as in on top of furniture, under everything, etc. for a fly to catch and eat.
I have to spell the word T-R-E-A-T in my house, if I’m using it for anything except calling the cats. When I say “treat treat” it means I have a can of soft canned food for them, which they like but don’t get often. I wait until they are in another room, quietly get out the can, utter the magic words, and wait to see them come running.
I’ve heard a radio call in pet show host, Warren Eckstein(?), claim the average dog understands 280 words (not tones or inflections - but a 280 word vocabulary comprehension). I don’t have any scientific cites, but I think his estimate is fairly accurate. My dogs alone respond to at least a dozen nicknames each.
Not a word, but a sound. My brother was watching something on TV and I heard something that sounded like church bells. All of a sudden, my dog started howling. She howls whenever someone leaves the house without her, but this was really different. She’d howl for a moment, then stop, then howl again. Her howls were all the same length (or at least, it seemed so to me) and she paused at regular intervals. 
When someone leaves the house, she just howls and howls until she runs out of breath. It was really weird. Then, my brother found a website full of sound effects and he played a similar one (church bells again) and the same thing happened. She’s a weird one, alright.
A boyhood friend thought his dog Mary Alice was pretty clever. When she heard her name, she’d run over and sit. Then, after the city election, he found that any mention of “Mayor Allis” would get the same eager reaction.
I had one that tried to catch Kid Icarus. Fortunately for my TV, she was front declawed, because she was pretty serious about it. Whenever she heard the music, she’d come flying to the TV.