Can Dogs Talk Using Buttons?

[BillTre]

Here is a nicely done PBS documentary on the ability of dogs to communicate.
There are several different approaches to possible dog communication, but its mostly focused on dogs pushing talk buttons. These are mostly on home button boards that make speech sounds when the dog pushes it (like "outside"). Since they become popular, many are using boards that can be linked up to a data collection site. They have thousands of dogs and millions of button pushes.
There are also several anecdotes indicative of understanding of the words that were button pushed.

Dogs are probably the animal most closely associated with people for the longest time (40,000 years?). Probably followed by cats. Among the domesticated animals, horses probably have the longest and most intense history of interactions (since horse riding) vs. goats, sheep, etc.).

 

[256bits]

Video is unavailable as a general Youtube outside of the USA.
One needs a PBS account, VPN, or some other mystical technological override.

Nonetheless, looking it up, button talking dogs seem to be all the rage for some owners to show off how 'smart' their dog is. Their dog is their 'child'?
A fun project for the pet owner.

Animals pick up easily on subtle visual gestures.
And gestures that most humans consciously miss.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans

My impression is similar to this lady biologist.
There is something there.
But the spoken 'language' interpretation that some owners like to give credit to their favourite pet seems to be extensively overplayed.

 

[Rive]

The linked video is not accessible for me, either...

But the spoken 'language' interpretation that some owners like to give credit to their favourite pet seems to be extensively overplayed.

Well... On one side, by now we know that communication issues and mismatched conceptual systems makes evaluations of intelligence inherently problematic.

On other side, AI just show us that actually how overplayed was the self-evaluation of our own communication.

I think within only a few (dog) generations there will be some geniuses with some kind of (measured) intelligence comparable to children (of various ages). And then on it'll be about numbers.

 

[BillTre]

Its too bad you could not see the actual video. The pet owner aspect is dealt with pretty well in the video.
It is a complex examination of the subject that a brief post will not do justice to.
The question of the dogs' understanding is examined in several ways, both statistically (based on the huge number of pooled responses and anecdotes and followups by some scientists.
Understanding by the dogs could be explained away in many but not all cases. A small number dogs were extraordinary in their abilities. I have had some rather dumb dogs, but also some smarter ones, so I think variance exists in dog smarts.
On the other hand, its understanding of single or pairs of words not full sentences like people.
Some of their little experiments eliminated gestures and other clues.

WRT the 2nd video:
She makes some good points, but several were addressed in the video.
Dogs have had something like 20,000 years to evolve improved communication with people, so some improvements over non-domesticated critters would be expected. They have evolved many other more easily observable changes.
The first video is not a conclusive exploration of the subject, but it does address several of the issues in the second video.