by Jennifer Sharpe
Who’s your favorite talking animal on social media? Is it Bastian or Bunny the dog? Or perhaps you prefer felines, like Billi or Steve B? Maybe you just adore the sassiness of Merlin the pig.
Pets that talk by pressing buttons with pre-recorded words are taking over the Internet, garnering followers on Tik Tok and Instagram, eager to see what these animals have to say.
Pet owners are giving their animals a voice by buying buttons that emit sounds or messages when pressed. The animals learn the meaning of each button through training, allowing them to tell humans when they want to play, eat, go outside and more.
How do the buttons work?
Buttons are programmed with words and sounds of your choosing. There are many brands of button on the market, offering varied sizes, colors, shapes and configurations.
“The buttons emit a sound that is already familiar to most dogs,” said Dr. Leticia Fanucchi, clinical assistant professor, behavioral medicine service, Oklahoma State University College of Veterinary Medicine. “The sounds are words they learn from simple operant conditioning.”
Operant conditioning is a learning method that rewards or punishes behaviors. Positive reinforcement rewards can include praise, affection and the use of treats, although it’s important with language training to limit when and how treats are used as rewards — you don’t want to confuse the word’s meaning with your pet.
How much training does it take?
According to FluentPet’s “The Complete Guide To Teaching Dogs To Talk with Buttons,” successful learning starts even before the buttons arrive.
There are likely many words that your pet already knows. FluentPet’s Guide advocates paying attention to the words that you frequently use and are “highly motivating” to your learner, such as toy, walk, play or treat. Then talk to your learner all day long, being consistent with your language and responsive to your pet.
“Dogs learn from repetition, just like people. The more you repeat, the faster you consolidate memory and learn the final behavior,” said Fanucchi.
When the buttons are set up, FluentPet’s Guide says to add them into your conversations with your pet. Whenever you say a word, press the corresponding button and follow-through on what it’s about — this is called modeling.
Fanucchi said that the amount of training needed to teach a pet to use buttons depends on the animal and how much time the owner invests in training. “Usually, five minutes a day is very effective,” she said.
FluentPet’s Guide recommends adding new words only after your learner understands how to press buttons, realizes that pressing a button causes something to happen, and knows the meaning of the buttons they already use.
A typical learner’s flow might start with observing and investigating the buttons, then pressing a button repeatedly to get what they want. Mapping is when learners realize that the meaning of a specific button is the same no matter where the button is physically located.
How much do pets actually understand?
With or without buttons, your pet understands certain words and commands, and they can be taught words just like we teach our young.
“Animals understand what the sound means just like people do,” Fanucchi said. “We are not born knowing words. We learn them over time from repetition and association. A sound means a specific outcome.”
Is there scientific research supporting animal communication and cognitive thought?
The Comparative Cognition Lab at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) has been researching pet cognition and communication for many years. The lab’s Animal Communication project is studying whether and to what extent animals trained to use Augmentative Interspecies Communication (AIC) devices, or soundboards, can communicate with their humans. Buttons are one type of AIC device.
According to the UCSD Comparative Cognition Lab, their work with AIC-using animals involves three broad scientific approaches: collection of owner-provided survey data, chronic video and audio recording of a small pool of participants over several months or years, and both remote and in-person controlled experiments.
As the lab states on its website, “The use of soundboards has the potential to be a powerful tool through which dogs, cats, and other domestic animals might be able to communicate their needs, wants, and internal conditions to their owners. The potential welfare impacts of this technology are powerful: if pets can tell their owners when they feel ill, for example, they might be taken to the vet sooner and treated before their condition becomes severe.”
Published scientific research also validates the accomplishments of those Internet-famous pets we all love to follow.
“The Comparative Cognition Lab at UC San Diego has published about it and is still doing research on thousands of dogs worldwide. However, canine cognition is not a new area of research,” said Fanucchi. “Dogs have been living with humans for a long time and have adapted and learned what is meaningful for their survival.”
