“What’s up buddy? Are you hungry?” What dog owner hasn’t dreamed of reading their pet’s mind? To respond to this desire, there are now gadgets that claim to give dogs a voice. But the scientific community has mixed feelings about the real value of these devices.
Bunny is not your average shepadoodle. This dog is said to be able to communicate with her owner, Alexis Devine – not by barking, like her fellow dogs, but by “talking”.
A sound mat enables her to express what she wants by pressing buttons with her paws that emit prerecorded words. She can thus indicate that she’s hungry, thirsty, or that her ears hurt, as seen in videos posted on social media.
Bunny’s vocal exploits have captured the attention not only of her millions of followers but also of cognitive scientists at the University of California. These specialists studied the dog as part of vast research into the communicative skills of non-human species, involving no fewer than 10,000 dogs and cats from 50 countries.
They discovered that dogs understand common words and are able to form two-word sentences in a considered way using a sound mat or buttons. In other words, they don’t just press buttons at random to please their humans.
However, this does not go beyond what scientists already knew about the abilities of these animals, who have been our companions for over 5,000 years. Over the past two decades, several studies have shown that certain dogs with extraordinary abilities are capable of retaining a large number of words.
Such is the case of Chaser, a border collie who has learnt the names of 1,022 objects, like balls, frisbees and plush animals. Trained by a team of US researchers for several hours a day for three years, this dog not only managed to memorise all these terms but also to classify them by function or shape.
In doing so, the late Chaser demonstrated skills superior to those of another border collie, Rico, who knows around 200 words.
But it remains to be seen whether Chaser and Rico’s impressive abilities are unique to a few extraordinary border collies, or whether they are shared by other dog breeds. If the videos on social networks are anything to go by, a wide variety of dog breeds appear to be able to express themselves by pressing sound buttons.
One video shows Sapphie, a pomsky, “telling” her owner that her favourite word is “bitch”. However, it’s unlikely that this statement is true, or that Sapphie actually even has a favourite word.
For Juliane Kaminski, assistant professor of comparative psychology at the University of Portsmouth, mats or buttons that are supposed to give dogs a voice play on our propensity for anthropomorphism, or giving human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities.
“People can’t help themselves. They see the dog pressing the ‘I love you’ button, and they’re like, ‘We’re having a conversation’,” she told the New York Times.
At present, the scientific community is unable to agree on whether animals have feelings for humans. Experts prefer to speak of emotions or sensations, since these are transient phenomena that can be measured physiologically.
Federico Rossano, associate professor of cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego, argues that these gadgets could be just the thing to determine whether dogs are capable of feelings.
He plans to conduct an experiment in which dogs are fitted with sensors to determine whether they are physiologically relaxed when they press a “happy” button and stressed when they choose a “worried” one, the New York Times reports. This approach opens the door to some fascinating philosophical and ethical questions.
Ultimately, even if we can’t say with certainty that dogs fully understand the words they select on a sound mat, these tools can nevertheless stimulate their intelligence and strengthen their bonds with their owners.