Time.news – But can dogs talk? Some of their owners say they do, using their paw to tap buttons with pre-recorded words. The animals are better known as botton dogs their ability to communicate “by pressing buttons identifiable by images, symbols or a position corresponding to specific words”, writes the Washington Post, which informs how soundboards composed of buttons exist and can still be purchased starting from about 30 dollars, for an initial “beginners” kit, to 230 dollars for a set suit for dogs that “can talk” or want to.
Of course, needless to say, the Button Dogs’ videos have gone viral on social media. One of the hashtags used with video titled #dogbuttons had 102.8 million views on TikTok in just a few days. Of course, the animals themselves are also a subject of debate, with animal behavior experts arguing and raising doubts and questions about what dogs are really “saying” and whether words mean the same thing to a dog that they do to us.
Another use of the hahaha button. I think she associates this with us having fun together! @FluentPet #fluentpet #talkingdog #DogsofTwittter #doghumor pic.twitter.com/SV65FTbegE
— Parker (@pupparkerposey) March 20, 2023
Sarah-Elisabeth Byosiere, director of the Thinking Dog Center at Hunter College, believes that “our dogs have been ‘talking’ to us all this time, but we haven’t just ‘listened,'” she says. “The short videos I see online seem to indicate that dogs are able to form associations between a button press and an outcome, but it’s really hard to tell if anything more is going on.”
However, a large and in-depth study under construction at the University of California San Diego is trying to determine the connection between buttons and what dogs want to communicate in a meaningful way. The research, conceived by Federico Rossano, the main person in charge of the work, is conducted in collaboration with FluentPet, a company that produces and sells buttons and soundboards. The company is sharing data with Rossano’s lab and the University of San Diego, but is not funding the study, according to reports. “We are not paying for the data and they are not paying us to analyze it,” said the research chief. “My lab collects additional information and also performs behavioral experiments, completely independent of FluentPet.”
The research involves about 10,000 dog owners from 47 countries while a much smaller subgroup – less than a dozen for now, but eventually it will be several hundred – has been equipped with cameras in their homes, operating 24/7, to detect the behavior of dogs pressing the buttons and decipher their meaning.
The tricks are of a different nature: the researchers also plan to monitor the dogs and perform tests on them to establish whether they are actually communicating or instead pressing buttons randomly. The results probably won’t be available before the end of the year, but in the meantime, scientific papers outlining their evidence are either being reviewed or submitted for publication.