Buzz
Treat. Walk. Play. Viral content on TikTok and Instagram shows pet dogs (and even a cheeky pig named Merlin) seemingly making requests by activating button boards—an arrangement of buttons labeled with words for canine needs—rather than using traditional barking or whining.
While these videos are amusing and heartwarming, they prompt a scientific inquiry: Do dogs pressing these buttons truly comprehend their function and use them to convey specific requests?
A recent study published in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that they do indeed understand and use the buttons to communicate.
Researchers from the University of California and the University of Valencia in Spain had 152 dog owners track their pets’ button presses using a custom smartphone app, resulting in more than 190,000 data points.
To confirm that the dogs' button presses were a meaningful form of communication, the researchers had to rule out common criticisms, such as the possibility that the presses were random, influenced by their owners’ unintentional body language (known as the Clever Hans effect), or the result of positive reinforcement.
The analysis showed that, overall, the dogs’ button presses weren’t random or accidental. Certain two-button combinations were pressed more frequently than by chance, and the presses didn’t always match their owners’ actions. This suggests the dogs were deliberately using the buttons to communicate rather than simply mimicking their owners.
Although the study was inspired by a social media trend, its results mark an important step in understanding animal-to-human communication. In the 1970s and ’80s, animal behaviorists focused on communicating with great apes. Pre-internet icons like Koko the gorilla and Washoe the chimpanzee, both taught American Sign Language, amazed the public by seemingly signing words about their environment and emotions.
Some skeptics question whether Koko and Washoe were truly communicating with humans, suggesting they might have been mimicking their caretakers or responding in ways that elicited positive reinforcement. Others believe the caretakers may have read too much into the animals’ responses. This field remains controversial due to a lack of enough apes to provide reliable data.
Thanks in part to TikTok, we're now getting a little closer to deciphering what dogs might be trying to say.
