“Talking” dogs

[Soubriquet]

Have you seen some dog owners have been training their dogs to “talk” by using buttons with voice commands in them like “treat” or “walkies”?

The dogs seem to understand that pressing these buttons get that they want

Made me laugh once though, as I saw a dog owner tell her dog it was bed time, and the dog replied with “later. Play, now”

The intellectual capacity of dogs is massive, I think. There is also huge variety between individuals - one of my current dogs is WAY brighter than any I've trained before. In fact, I am certain he is training me

But yes, I think it perfectly possible for some/most dogs to learn that a sequence that went something like:

• the conditions of bedtime exist
• I press this thing with my paw
• lovely play time happens! Hurrah!

I think if I did this with my dogs, the cuddle button, play button and treat button would be completely worn out by the end of the week

Same here.

Along with the 'back massage' and 'scrunch my ears' buttons

TBF, he does a pretty good job of demanding those without the button...

Yes, they’re fascinating...if they’re accurate they’re doing way more than just asking for things, there’s proper communication... about loads of things.

The ones I’ve seen don’t have a treat button btw

I daren't try with my lot. It would be a constant barrage of 'Walk now!', 'Take me too!' and (from one of them) 'Food food food NOW! Food!'

I’ve seen one with a treat button

Another one that had me amazed was by a dog called Bunny

She pressed the question mark, then pressed ouch, and licked her nose

Owner took her to the vet, and the vet found a raging infection in the nasal cavity and said she was lucky to bring the dog in when she did

Coincidence? Maybe

Can you imagine if cats did it?

'Inferior species, feed lord / lady now or consequences'

Actually there was a cat one!!

Basically all it said was “mad. Mad. Mad. Treat. Now. Mad”

Slightly off topic, but I read about some horses that had been trained to 'say' whether they wanted their blankets on or not, by indicating different symbols on a board.

Sounds about right Soubriquet.

Bunny is great.
Have you seen the one about 'play poop'? She's actually talking about farting, but no one had given her the word so she made one up.

She really seems to be grasping the whole idea of human/dog but she can't quite figure out why we are different. It's amazing.

The ear bit was amazing where she said ouch for her ear

Shows that animals are more intelligent than we give them credit for

For example, did you know that prairie dogs have different calls for different alerts and will even go as far as describing them with specific instructions.

So they can say “a large brown hawk” or “a red fox”

In testing subjects, they even went as far as saying “ a tall man in a blue shirt” Obviously not those exact words, but the chirps for those words were the same every time compared to a “woman in a yellow dress”. Those chirps were different from the first sentence but still the exact same chirps for any woman wearing a yellow dress

Fascinating

Bunny
m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=197970591973559&id=105047414599211

Nor dog related but...

Jackdaws have different calls for the flock flying out from the roost, or flying back - along the lines 'Let's go!' and 'Come back!'

A researcher (it might have been Konrad Lorenz, I can't remember) had an aviary full of jackdaws. One night a fox got in and killed all but one, which spent the following day sitting in the aviary roof calling, 'Come back! Come back!'

i was just watching some Bunny youtubes the other day, when she had a "stranger ouch paw", turned out to be a splinter or thorn between her toebeans

and she had a visitor about the project, and hit her buttons to say something like, stranger go, bunny out cos she'd had enough and wanted to go for her walk!

I am wondering about teaching our dog...i might add some swears! :o

Just thinking of my brother's dog. It would definitely need a button for "it wasn't me".

Some dogs are more vocal than others. Mine talk but they are huskies its to do with their vocal range. They mimic words. Its freaked people out when before when they have talked before.

The Facebook link upthread doesn't work for me (maybe because I'm not on FB?) - are there YouTubes?

@ErrolTheDragon https://instagram.com/whataboutbunny?igshid=1vq91minw7u2t

Thanks... I'm not on Instagram either.

@ErrolTheDragon just google Bunny the talking dog, there's plenty there...articles and you tube links.