They are known as “button dogs” for their supposed ability to communicate with their humans through buttons with images, symbols, or positions that correspond to certain words.

The concept is steadily gaining momentum, with pet owners buying $30 to $230 sets of buttons and sounds with which they allow their dogs and, less commonly, cats to answer questions or express emotions (“out”) or anger (“violent anger”). “). “) or desire (“snack”, “cookie” and “walk”).

This question, however, is debatable, as animal behaviorists wonder what dogs actually “say” and whether words mean the same to them as they do to us.

“We already understand what dogs are trying to tell us without using buttons, but when we use a human language interface, we begin to attribute too much to our general understanding of these words. “If a dog presses the ‘love’ button, maybe that’s why it means ‘pet’ or ‘call my name,'” says Amrita Mallikarjun, a research fellow at the Pennsylvania Working Dog Veterinary Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

A major ongoing study from the University of California is trying to find out if dogs can actually communicate effectively using buttons.

The study, led by Federico Rossano, is being conducted in collaboration with FluentPet, a company that manufactures and sells audio consoles. Although the company does not participate in the financing of the study, it provides data to the Rossano laboratory.

“We don’t pay for this data, and they don’t pay us to analyze the data. My lab is collecting additional data and running behavioral experiments completely independent of FluentPet,” explains Rossano.

The research data is based on data provided by the “parents” of about 10,000 dogs from 47 countries, Rossano says, a small number of which now have cameras that record the animal’s behavior around the clock.

Data are currently being collected for 1600 dogs and 400 cats. “But since this is a longitudinal study, depending on the questions, we can use data from more than 10,000 participants or just focus on the data we are collecting right now,” he says.

Another use of the button hahaha. I think she attributes it to the fact that we have fun together! @FluentPet #free pet #talking dog #DogsTwitter #dog humor pic.twitter.com/SV65FTbegE

— Parker (@pupparkerposey) March 20, 2023

“For example, if we want to look at which temperamental traits or which breed is best at button learning, we can get answers on a sample of 10,000 dogs. But if we want to see how quickly participants learn a new button or whether they are ready to participate in the experiment, obviously we can now count on 2,000 participants, not 10,000,” says Rossano.

Scientists plan to monitor dogs for life to see if they actually communicate or just press buttons randomly.

“While there are clear differences between the dogs in the study, we now have strong evidence that for several dogs in our study, button presses are not random,” notes Rossano, although scientific papers describing their evidence are either on being considered for publication, or in the process of being submitted. In any case, their findings will not be available until the end of this year.

For his part, Clive Wynn, director of the Canine Collaboration at Arizona State University, believes that a small minority of dogs can use buttons to communicate, which he calls “impressive,” even though it’s already known how dogs can acquire vocabulary.

Check out this post on Instagram.

A post posted by FluentPet (@fluentpet)

He quotes Chaser, a border collie who knew about 1200 words but didn’t use buttons to communicate.

However, many caregivers are already “convinced”. So does Joel Andres, a special education teacher who claims Bastian, her terrier, learned the technique almost immediately by pressing the food, walk, and exit buttons.

“He pressed the exit button and ran to the door. If he presses the “snacks” button, he will go to the kitchen where his food is stored. With a ‘walk’, he went to the stairs and brought his leash,” she says, arguing that the choice of buttons was not accidental.

Source: Washington Post.