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This article examines how an interactionist linguistic approach could contribute to the analysis of human/animal communication. Communicative exchanges between humans and animals take place on a frequent, commonplace, and daily basis, whether at home or at work. However, they have so far been the subject of few in-depth investigations, since they are difficult to analyze from either an ethological perspective (which is usually interested in the communicative behavior of a specific species) or a linguistic perspective (which focuses on articulated verbal language, namely that of humans). Using audio and video data collected in various contexts and in “natural” situations (as opposed to experimental ones), which give access to forms of address that have been little-documented in the literature to date, this study identifies three recurrent modes of addressing the domestic animal, and examines their pragmatic effects.This indicates the need to re-examine, using precise empirical data, some of the more general questions that are usually raised when dealing with human/animal relationships, including that of the agency of animals, the attribution of intentions, and the possible means of mutual adjustment.