Is your dog showing signs of distress but you can’t figure out why? Do you wish they could communicate with you? There are now dog “talking” buttons available on the market that claim to enable your dog to do just that. These buttons range in price from $15 for a basic kit to hundreds of dollars for more advanced options. However, is there any evidence to support the effectiveness of these products?
The concept behind these buttons is simple. You record yourself saying a word like “treat” or “outside” into each button, and when the button is pressed, the recorded word is played back. The idea is that your dog can be trained to understand these words and use them to communicate with you. These talking buttons fall under the category of augmentative and alternative communication, which is a method of communication that doesn’t rely on speech. Similar devices are used by humans with conditions such as autism or intellectual disability.
Dogs may be able to learn to press these buttons through a process called operant conditioning, which is the same process used to teach them basic commands like “sit”. When a dog performs a behavior and receives a desired outcome, such as a treat, they are more likely to continue that behavior. Christina Hunger, a speech language pathologist, popularized the idea of dogs “talking” with buttons and claims to have taught her dog Stella over 50 words and phrases.
However, there are alternative explanations for what may appear as complex behavior in animals. Animals are skilled at picking up on our body language cues, which may make it seem like they understand more than they actually do. Dogs, in particular, are adept at reading our body language due to their domestication and thousands of years of observing human behavior. When dogs are trained to use talking buttons, they may be learning through operant conditioning to some extent, but in cases where they seem to string together multiple buttons or respond to specific commands, they are likely responding to their owner’s body language and cues.
To gather more data on the effectiveness of talking buttons, a study is currently being conducted by the Comparative Cognition Lab at UC San Diego. However, no evidence has been published yet. Until then, the only evidence we have is anecdotal reporting from dog owners, who may be biased in thinking their dog is highly intelligent.
It’s important to consider the potential harm that can come from treating dogs differently based on assumptions about their thoughts and emotions. For example, dogs may appear “guilty” when scolded for chewing up an item, but they are actually responding to their owner’s reaction rather than feeling genuine guilt. Punishing a dog for something they did hours earlier will not be associated with their action. Some dogs may be more interested in interacting with talking buttons than others, but this does not make them inherently smarter.
If you can acknowledge and address the potential risks mentioned above, buying talking buttons will not harm you or your dog (aside from the cost). However, there are numerous ways to communicate with your dog without relying on such devices. For example, Chaser the border collie learned how to retrieve over 1,000 toys by name without the use of augmentative devices. Ultimately, spending quality time with your dog and using positive reinforcement training will benefit both of you. Dogs are incredible animals with whom we can communicate in various ways, and they do not need to understand our language for this connection to exist.
