A one-year-old Poodle mix named Bunny had just returned from a walk with her owner in Tacoma, Washington, on a bright July afternoon. Bunny was hovering over her language board, eyeing the sound-generating buttons, as she frequently does.
When the white and black dog pressed a button, it immediately made the word “mad” sound. ” “Why mad?” asked Alexis Devine — Bunnys 40-year-old owner. The dog then moved to press the ouch button. Devine, skeptically, proceeded to ask: “Where is your ouch?”.
After some hesitation, Bunny moved toward a fresh button. “Stranger,” it chimed. Soon after that, she sounded the paw button.
She called her pet over and started looking at Bunny’s foot. She was shocked to find a foxtail, an invasive species of grass that can pierce dogs’ skin and occasionally necessitates surgery, stuck in between Bunny’s toes.
“I was aware that there was a foreign object there when Bunny said stranger, paw. Before it needed medical attention, I could see it and get rid of it, Devine told Insider.
“Every time she can describe to me where she hurts, I’m completely astounded,” continued Devine. “Its incredible. “.
These human-like conversations between a pet and its owner haven’t just astounded Devine. 5. Over 7 million people now follow Bunny’s TikTok account and have left comments expressing surprise at the dog’s apparent communication skills.
Quickly, Bunny and Devine built a dedicated fanbase. They created the account in June, and within a month it had amassed over a million followers and tens of millions of likes.
Early versions of Bunny’s viral videos demonstrate the Sheepadoodle interacting with Devine via a selection of basic buttons. In an effort to communicate with her owner, Bunny presses the love you and outside buttons in them.
This novel approach to training pets to communicate is credited to San Diego speech therapist Christina Hunger as its creator. She was eager to find out if dogs could similarly express themselves with words after being inspired by her work as a speech therapist with toddlers.
“When I brought my new puppy Stella home, I realized she demonstrated many of the same pre-linguistic communication skills as toddlers do right before they start talking, which is when I was struck with an idea,” Hunger wrote on her blog.
Hunger had the idea to begin training her dog to communicate using an AAC board. The AAC device consists of an organized grid of interlocking tiles, each with a different button that represents and vocalizes a different word.
Her two-year-old dog quickly began using the device to sound out words and even appear to form phrases up to five words in length.
Devine “devoured” Hunger’s blog after being astounded by Stella’s development and bought a few basic buttons for Bunny to experiment with. She told Insider, “I expanded and added a few more buttons with velcro to a plywood board.
She then made the decision to update Bunny’s status on social media. A cognitive scientist then got in touch with Devine to tell her about an AAC prototype that FluentPet was currently developing.
Devine consented to have a team from the University of California, San Diego keep an eye on Bunny in exchange for the AAC board.
When the prototype arrived, numerous cameras were placed throughout her living room to keep an eye on Bunny’s actions.
Bunny’s observation is a part of the TheyCanTalk study, an initiative run by researchers from CleverPet and the Comparative Cognition Lab at UC San Diego. Leo Trottier, Cleverpets Founder, and UC San Diegos Dr. Bunny is being examined by Federico Rossano to determine whether dogs can actually speak.
If animals can express themselves in ways akin to language, how much they can do so, and whether or not they do so is the subject of scientific research.
When first told about the study, Rossano, a linguist who had researched non-human communication with primates, was dubious.
He is surprised by some of his team’s observations after six months. “What we’ve seen is that once the dogs understand several buttons, they’re able to start producing multi-button combinations,” Rossano told Insider. We already have six button combinations, which is more than I had anticipated, to be perfectly honest. “.
One of the 1300 dogs participating in the project is Bunny, the project’s star He continued, “We also know that some dogs are using over 20 buttons.”
It’s very exciting to see, and we’re now attempting to determine the extent to which those multi-button combinations are systematic, Rossano continued. “.
The TheyCanTalk team has been surprised by more than one observation. One finding, which wasn’t even modeled for in the initial experiment, suggested that dogs may be much smarter than currently believed.
According to Rossano, “there are several instances where dogs refer to things they are unfamiliar with using expressions that seem to convey some productivity abilities.” This is when canines come up with inventive ways to refer to things they don’t have words for specifically. “.
We once saw a baby seal on the beach, according to Devine. Bunny was wagging her tail and looked so curious. When she came home, she pressed water and hippo. “.
“Then, another time, we were walking in the park and noticed a deer on our trail,” she continued. She came home and pressed cat and hippo. “.
Rossano reflected on this, telling Insider: “This is really creative. Bunny has chosen a combination of words to describe an animal’s features. She is attempting to come up with inventive ways to refer to things for which she lacks the words. “.
The TheyCanTalk team was also intrigued by the apparent “clarity” with which dogs can express their emotions. According to Rossano, some dogs express their emotions, whether they’re angry, joyful, or in pain. “.
We didn’t anticipate the level of clarity that appears to be developing in some of these circumstances, he continued.
This finding, according to Rossano, is potentially momentous. It might “humongously” affect how we care for our pets and how animals are treated.
For me, a lot of the research focuses on figuring out how animals think, in an effort to demonstrate that they are more intelligent than we previously believed. They deserve to be acknowledged because they have feelings, skills, experiences, and a life,” he said.
“Many animals are underappreciated for their intelligence, and because of that, we treat them inhumanely, doing things that we shouldn’t be doing,” Rossano continued. We hope that this study will improve the wellbeing of dogs by helping people to better understand their needs. “.
Devine agrees. She claimed that some people might view their pets as a kind of fluffy potato. It could fundamentally alter our relationships with animals if, as a result of this research, people begin to view their pets as sentient beings with sophisticated cognitive abilities. I think that would be wonderful. “.
Devines’ relationship with Bunny has changed as a result of participating in the study. “I think this has really strengthened our bond,” she said. “Bunnys a miraculous little creature. “.
How we could check whether dogs can talk
We’ve already established that in order for dogs to properly communicate with their owners, they would need to become fluent in both English and the word-board language. The dogs would need to be completely immersed in word-board language in order to learn it, never having encountered oral English.
Then, one would need to show that dogs understand the meaning of words used. This could be tested in the same way as it was with the dog Chaser – giving them orders via the word board. If they understand combinations they have never been exposed to before, we can draw the conclusion that they understand the meaning of each word.
We can say, for instance, that if a dog is exposed to the words “touch ball” and “take teddy” and later understands “touch teddy,” it is capable of deriving the meaning of each word. More difficult experiments could be conducted to examine their capacity for language production once this has been confirmed.
Stella and Bunny could very well be communicating through these word boards, but until there is more concrete evidence, we must proceed with caution. However, we can acknowledge that these word boards engage dogs’ minds, keep them occupied, and deepen their bonds with their owners.
One last crucial point: we don’t need marketing strategies to communicate with our animals. Many studies have already shown that we understand each other very well. So just trust yourself!
Funding:
The Ecole Normale Supérieure, PSL University, the Fyssen Foundation, and the European Research Council have all provided funding to Mélissa Berthet.
Through the Ecole Normale Supérieure – PSL Université, Léo Migotti has received funding from the French Department of Higher Education and Research.
Another criticism is that despite their best efforts, people (who understandably seek connection) might place more significance in the one successful button-pressing experience than the nine unsuccessful trials.
Their ability to use play signals suggests that they may have a basic theory of mind: understanding that there is some sort of mediating factor between the actions of other dogs and theirs. Dogs can consider not only their own thoughts but also the thoughts of others while playing, and they can then modify their message accordingly.
The fact that button-pressing animals could possibly learn to perform well at the soundboard, regardless of whether they understand that they are using human words or not, is perhaps the most persistent criticism of Bunny’s experimental setup. This criticism may seem subtle to some, but it is crucial if we are to understand dogs’ potential in an objective manner.
So what do I make of it all as someone who writes about the science of dogs? I admire Bunny’s human companion for her incredible devotion to this wonderful dog, but I find myself… surprisingly underwhelmed.
Bunny the dog is often in my thoughts. She is mentioned in my replies. My friends talk of her. I see her in newspapers and online articles. And, predictably, she is all over Instagram and YouTube. Why? Because Bunny, a dog who has a special ability that most dogs lack, can express her desires by pressing a button on a special keyboard and using human language.
Bunnys fans arent always interested in whether or not she can “talk”, per se, but more about whats going on in her mind, the extent to which she is conscious. “The [nonhuman language] debate often seems to take on a quasi-religious tone, as if the issue were whether animals had souls rather than whether they have languages,” one introductory linguistics class lesson from the University of Pennsylvania pointed out.
The inner lives of animals have long piqued human curiosity in humans. We want to know if the animals with whom we share the planet have thoughts similar to ours or if they could communicate with us if we gave them the right tools, so call it a desire born out of the loneliness of human sentience.
Outside of her existential pondering, Bunny uses her buttons to ask a lot of questions about poop. At times, Bunny also appears to ask for what she wants, whether its “scritches,” or to be let outside. In one recent video, Bunny pushes the “help” button. Devine asks, “How can I help? What help?” Bunny pushes “friend,” then “play.” “Who do you want to play with?” Devine asks. Bunny walks over to the sliding glass door, and when Devine follows she sees a group of neighborhood dogs waiting patiently behind the fence.
Rossano believes it’s critical to hone our line of inquiry in light of all the ill will from the past. We must first ask more fundamental questions than just whether animals can speak, such as: What is language, where does communication end and language begin, and does language operate on a dimmer, with humans at full brightness and animals like Bunny only a quarter of the way on?
Its probably the most famous existential crisis since Jean Paul Sartres novel Nausea: In November, a sheepadoodle named Bunny looked into a mirror and said, “Who this” by pushing buttons on a soundboard designed for her to communicate with her owner, Alexis Devine. Moments after seemingly questioning her existence, Bunny pushed the button, “Help.”
FAQ
Can a dog really talk?
Dogs may not speak in the same way as people do, but they do communicate. Descended from wolves, dogs are very social creatures. They “talk” to each other through scents, sounds, and gestures. Dogs communicate in a variety of ways that humans can understand if they know what to listen for!
Are dog talking buttons real?
Leading what they refer to as the largest community science project ever done on animal communication are researchers at UC San Diego. Dogs can communicate with humans through the use of soundboards, which they activate with their paws or noses.
Is Stella the talking dog real?
She is a real, living animal, and when she presses buttons, recorded words are activated. Stella is an Internet sensation. (No surprise. She is the subject of the book “How Stella Learned to Talk,” written by her owner Christina Hunger, and has nearly 800,000 Instagram followers.