Could animals talk?

[Tuor of Gondolin]

About Fatty Lumpkin communicating with the hobbit horses,
as frequently with Tom B. it's rather vague, but provocative:

When your ponies stayed with me, they got to know my Lumpkin; and they smelt him in the night, and quickly ran to meet him. I thought he'd look for them and with his words of wisdom take all their fear away.

(Literal words, or horse sense )