Can This Self Aware Dog Talk With Buttons?!

#dogbuttons #bunnythedog #kpassionate
Animals communicate with us constantly. But do we really need expensive buttons on our floors to tell us they want to play? I'm here to tell you to take a closer look at these videos of Bunny the Dog talking when you see them and think critically about the information presented.

00:00 - Bunny the Dog Talking
00:35 - Bunny the Dog Reaction
02:30 - Confirmation Bias
03:57 - Can Dogs Understand Humans
04:41 - Do Pet Buttons Work?
06:15 - Teaching Your Dog to Go Outside
07:30 - Can Dogs Understand English
08:41 - Is Bunny the Dog Really Talking?
10:30 - How Do Dogs Communicate?
11:24 - KPassionate

Study after study has shown that visual, tactile, and olfactory communication is far more important to a dog than verbal communication.

There have also been studies using EEGs and MRIs to measure brain activity in dogs when they hear human words. These studies found that dogs do not have the ability to distinguish different words AND that almost 50% of what they respond to when they hear a human speak is their emotion and tone of voice.

Dogs do not recognize themselves in mirrors, but that doesn't mean how they react isn't important.

Learn more about animal training with these videos!
[1] Debunking Alpha Dog Training
[2] How and Why Zoos and Aquariums Train Their Animals
[3] Secrets of the Navy's Classified Dolphin Program

I am far from the only scientist to urge caution when watching these videos Bunny the Dog talking or of animals using Fluent Pet buttons in general. A fluent pet review in a leading magazine on neuroscience, psychology, and deep learning said:

For example. Bunny steps on the word HELP. Bunny's owner reconstructs the sentence “More now happy help” to mean she wants help being more happy than she was previously. How do we know Bunny wasn't asking how SHE could help her owner be more happy? What empirical evidence do we have that this is what Bunny was trying to communicate? It is my observation that What About Bunny has been trained to step on buttons in order to elicit a response from her human and she is doing so at random.

Instead of spending your money on these expensive talking dog buttons by Fluent Pet, I encourage you to learn more about dog behavior and operant conditioning! I promise that will lead to a happier and healthier relationship with your dog.

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Music

ADDITIONAL IMAGERY

[KPassionate]

Many have suggested I need to watch more videos of Bunny. So I did. Did they change my mind?

Cited Sources:

[carolinecarlson]

There was one video where bunny expressed she had a pain in her paw. She wasn't limping or licking at the paw but she clearly said there was an ouch in her paw. Her mom checked and Indeed there was a thorn stuck in between her toes. Bunny was able to express that well.

[apaulinaria]

Hold up. My dog recognizes human language and knows what some words mean. Go outside is different than go for a walk. And different from food. And up. So if I connected this action to a button she can press I don’t see why this wouldn’t work. It makes sense. Doesn’t matter who or what is saying the word. Yes there’s also body language but this is her learning my human communication, and understanding it because she knows this sound means this action. And that’s the basis of any language including body language.

[romeor]

Bunny may not have the depth of understanding that it appears she has but she definitely knows what some of those buttons mean and can use them correctly. It's the same way they can learn a verbal command and also know the physical movement to communicate it.

[Deislyn]

My dogs use the buttons but they are not all together on a board. Potty is near the back door, walk near the front door, in the kitchen is 'cookie' and 'eat' and near the bottom of the steps to go upstairs is 'go to bed', etc (handicapped dog cant do steps on his own). They definitely learned which buttons in which locations result in specific actions from me. They may not know full sentences, but If say 'cookie'. they immediately run to the kitchen and sit by the counter where the treats are kept so they definitely know words. With body actions, you cant know what your dog wants and needs unless your always staring at them. The buttons have been a great tool for my dogs to get my attention on a specific needs/wants. I would recommend these for any dog owner.

[vexcarius]

The owner is even skeptic of her technique. She didn’t claim that it is scientific.

There is one time she pressed the Pain button and they discovered that the dog is really in pain when they brought her to the vet.

[enque]

Oh my goodness, dismissing others for not being scientific enough and then doing even worse non-scientific things yourself during your "debunking"?!

1. As a biologist, you MUST be aware that completely normal dogs, not exceptional dogs, understand about 20-30 spoken words? Body language, yes definitely. Tone, yes absolutely. But they also understand words delivered completely without gesture or tone accompanying them. Exceptional dogs do about 120 words. My past dog could fetch any requested item and deliver it to any requested person or place, totaling about 30-40 words. She was not an exceptional dog though. You must know such dogs are commonplace yet you pretend this is not a thing? How disingenuous of you.

2. You're a biologist. Cool. The lady whose method you're debunking is a speech pathologist. Well done pulling rank there.

3. So dogs clearly have listening comprehension. And forming your own sentences is a more difficult skill. But surely it is not outlandish to assume if a normal dog can comprehend 30-40 words, that probably it can productively use 5-10 when speaking, if only it had the voicebox to make such sounds?

4. They say "learner" because it's an instructional video about a method that applies equally well to other animals, and people are currently attempting to use it on other species (with varying degrees of success). Using the term "learner" in this context is not a millennial thing, it is an accurate use of words.

5. Zero boards contain the word "person". The buttons in the video say "person 1" and "person 2". The video merely means "put specific person name here". Like "Jake" or "Judy". Typically a dog has no trouble separating the names for 2 specific humans, its own name, and 1 specific other pet, and the word "stranger". So there typically are about 5 buttons for specific persons.

6. Teachers do not introduce buttons for new words until the learner has started using the last button/word in the correct context. It is everybodys experience that you get abysmal results if you introduce too many buttons at once, because apparently then they all just mean "give me attention now", as far as the learner can tell. The difference between these two situations is typically rather obvious.

7. Yes the owner of Bunny the dog often applies overly "confirmation biasy" interpretations of sentences and ignores words she judges does not make sense. This is true and it is a mistake by her, and the owner of Stella the dog does it much better, by not ignoring anything and always acting verbatim on what was said with the buttons.

However you cherry-picked two examples that fit your critical narrative and dismissed all the other evidence. Like.... an even worse mistake than confirmation bias, is it not? Thus you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater by dismissing the whole thing based on finding a few cases of overly generous interpretations.

8. You say they don't stop and think before typing? You accidentally saw edited videos where the dog did it quickly. The NORMAL video contains extended pauses between prompt, human response, new prompt, next human response, and so on, during which the dog is OBVIOUSLY thinking about how to continue the exchange. There is CLEARLY thinking involved. Just look at more examples.

[cynthiamelman]

Bunny is being evaluated by linguists. She has tapped buttons that possibly show complex thinking. "Dog. Animal. Mom Human. Dad poops." (He had just come out of the bathroom.)
To me, a non-scientist, Bunny seems to be thinking and understanding some concepts.

[MaliceMonger]

I have been trying some buttons with my dog for about 5 months. I had already taught my dog to paw on objects to have a certain action happen following the command ‘what do you want?’ . Such as pawing on the door to open it, pawing the food bowl for her kibble etc. One thing is that my dog always tries to find the most efficient method to communicate a certain thing like ‘come’ button didn’t work for me as she just found it easier to rest her head on my leg to grab attention. But she does use the Hungry button when she does feel hunger such as when we missed her routine feeding. She always presses ‘playtime’ when my Father in Law comes in as she loves to play with him. So far I have taught her the other buttons such as Outside and treats. So my dog also knows to track following the command ‘where is <subject>’ so when I ask her where is Mommy, when my wife is at work, she always either paws at the entrance door or presses on the outside button.

[diannemartino]

The words ARE important. I owned a guard dog. Most of his voice commands were in English. But the security words were in German. I could have screamed “Attack” until I was blue in the face and he would have stood there looking confused. I had to Sa it in German for him to know what I meant and react.

[mreese]

Confirmation bias: "I watched that dog for 2 seconds and already have an opinion." Well done.

[margaretbelanger]

To be fair, this analysis wasn’t the scientific method either. You can’t prove the dogs intent with that pressing the buttons. Dogs can have really complicated jobs, I think it should be studied more because there is definitely something there…maybe not the ability to understand words that represent vague concepts, at least right away, but I think they could definitely understand verbs, nouns & feelings.

[DrZoonotics]

I can appreciate KPassionate's knowledge and experience in non-human animal behavior and her grasp of the scientific method. With the internet, too many people convince themselves that they can become an "expert" just by "doing their research" which is nothing more than listening to videos by people who have no idea about the subject they are babbling about. I search for a properly educated/trained non-human animal behaviorist for dog behavior and a professional dog groomer to do the grooming but not the other way around. The internet is full of properly educated/trained professionals in veterinary and human health fields to have to settle for wannabes.

[BraxEvans]

I think that much like Bunny's owner you are being selective in using the clips and examples that best support your point . Also it shouldn't be ignored that both of your primary incentives are not to remain objective. Its creating content. You set out to make a debunking video and chose examples to support that. Bunny's channel has alot of far more compelling clips that are not as easily debunked. And that show unexpected potential value like Bunny alerting her mom that her paw hurt. Upon investigation her owner pulled out a splinter from between her toes. Giving a pet the tools to communicate when they are in pain has too much potential to just dismiss outright. They are onto something with these buttons and luckily they have been on the market long enough that dirt cheap chinese knockoffs are now available making your whole don't waste your money advice inaccurate. You can get a 4 pack for 20ish bucks.

[AngelProjekt]

How Stella Learned to Talk by Christina Hunger explains the buttons from the perspective of a speech language pathologist. There is a lot more going on than this video suggests. E.g., “eat” when they just ate could be asking for more or observing they just ate and liked it or observing someone else is eating, etc. Whether the dog understands or not, acting like they do reiterates context for the word, which increases the dog’s ability to use that word/button correctly.

[dallindemie]

My dog definitely understands different words. If I say “car”, she runs to the car, I say “walk” she runs and grabs her leash and brings it to me, I say “treat” or if I say “bed” she goes to her bed and lays down. I do t see how the button thing is much different. Doesn’t seem unrealistic at all.
Maybe the stuff that’s a little complex and descriptive isn’t correct (especially cause you can’t really prove they know what they’re saying)
But I definitely could see my dog using buttons to ask for specific things. She already does that just in a different way

[JulesCoppola]

Scientists also used to think that newborns could not feel pain and thus performed surgeries without anesthesia. Science will catch up.

[aliecarey]

Stella is the original. Her owner created the talking dog buttons. She is a speech pathologist and you might be interested in checking her out.

[viancareeves]

What about when the dog presses, “ouchie”, then she asks where. The dog presses, “left paw”. She goes to check the left paw and the dog had a hitchhiker stuck in between her toes. I agree that body language is a primary communication mechanism, but seems as though even our ancestors developed a verbal way to communicate.. I mean yeah I’m still skeptic but Intrigued

[kitlc]

Have you seen Billi the cat? It’s far from hard science, but I think it’s interesting. Some of the concepts seem advanced for her to understand, but she chooses her buttons more slowly and carefully and she tends to request basic things like food, play, toys, asking for attention, etc.