One of many fascinating and bizarre phenomena to emerge out of TikTok has been videos of “talking” dogs –  dogs apparently communicating with their owners using a set of push buttons labeled with words. We know dogs are capable of making simple associations between a button and a particular action or object – like learning how pushing the “treat” button will result in receiving a treat – but what’s more intriguing is that some of these dogs have seemingly managed to form “sentences” using sequences of words in their vocabulary. Bunny, the most popular “talking” dog on TikTok with over 8.3 million followers, has constructed up to 4-word clauses. One of her favorites is “love you, mom” [1]. 

The Rossano lab at the University of California San Diego is currently studying Bunny and over 2,500 other pets that are attempting to communicate through push button soundboards in the largest study to date of animal communication using citizen science data. Dr. Rossano, who is heading the study, is hoping that data from these animals will help cognitive scientists like himself assess whether animals are capable of human-like cognition that surpasses our current understanding [2].

While we don’t know to what extent pets like Bunny are capable of learning human languages, it turns out that our pets do understand quite a lot about us and how we communicate, both verbally and non-verbally. A study of 18 dogs at the Neuroethology of Communication Lab at the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary found that dogs are capable of distinguishing between words spoken in a human language they are familiar with and words spoken in a foreign human language. fMRI scans of the dogs’ brains revealed different activity in the secondary auditory cortex and the precruciate gyrus between the familiar language words and foreign words conditions. These are two brain regions associated, in both humans and dogs, with deciphering the meaning of speech and the emotional content of speech. The difference in brain activity between the conditions was even more pronounced in older dogs, with more exposure to the familiar language. This implies that dogs learn to recognize some elements of verbal human communication [3].

Dogs have also evolved to read non-verbal human communicative patterns well. Many studies have shown that when looking for food, dogs make use of human pointing gestures, even when other factors like smell are controlled for. Interestingly, dogs in one study were also able to distinguish between intentional and unintentional pointing gestures using another human social cue –  eye contact. When the human in the study made no eye contact with the dog as they were gesturing, the dog ignored the gesture. Dogs have been shown to make use of other subtle human social cues, like head turning, bowing, nodding, or even glancing, to find food or objects in studies [4]. 

Dogs are uniquely specialized in their ability to read pointing gestures. They outperform their closest living relative (the wolf), human’s closest relative (the chimpanzee), and other domesticated mammals like goats and horses when it comes to successfully using human pointing gestures to search for a reward. Even puppies as young as 6 weeks are capable of using human pointing gestures to find objects. Dogs likely developed this skill as they were being domesticated by humans nearly 15,000 years ago. The adaptation hypothesis theorizes that humans selected dogs who were good at reading human gestures in the process of selecting dogs who were good hunters and herders. The idea behind this theory is that the ability to read human gestures well gives dogs an advantage in hunting and herding activities, so dogs were taught human communication patterns. Humans selected those dogs who followed these patterns well, which explains why this skill evolved in dogs [4].

Despite their evolved understanding of human gesturing, however, dogs still don’t utilize human gestures in a way consistent with human children. Children at just 14 months have been shown to “eavesdrop,” picking up on gestures not directed at them but at another person in the same room. Dogs, on the other hand, tend to ignore gestures not directed at them, even when these gestures carry the same informational value as gestures they would follow when directed specifically at them. Furthermore, dogs follow direct gestures even when no valuable information is being conveyed through the gestures; dogs will follow gestures leading them in the opposite direction of the scent of food, for instance. As such, dogs may not understand gestures as carrying meaning the same way that children do. Instead, dogs seem to be restricted in their understanding of human gestures to receiving directive orders, not interpreting the information conveyed through these directives [4]. 

When it comes to initiating communication themselves, dogs also differ from children. Dogs only signal humans to the directions of objects when the objects are of interest and relevance to them, not when the objects are only of interest to their human owners. This is not the case with children, who from an early age demonstrate a motivation to share information with others even when there’s no apparent benefit for themselves in sharing this information. Dogs not only seem to have a very narrow understanding of human communication but also lack the motivation to communicate information. Therefore, there’s no evidence as of now to suggest that dogs like Bunny understand or utilize human language with much complexity [4].

Cats, another animal living in close proximity with humans, have developed a similar skill of reading human communication patterns like gestures and gazes, though not quite as robustly as dogs. Humans domesticated cats to help with rodent problems, not for hunting and herding purposes, so they weren’t selected for their ability to read humans’ gestures as it’s been hypothesized that dogs have. Whether cats use human social cues depends more on the context. Cats are more likely to follow these cues in experiments involving food, for instance [5].

That being said, cats develop a unique relationship with their owners, which is built on unique communicative patterns. Cats meow more frequently with humans than with other cats, and domesticated cats also produce higher pitched meows than feral cats and their wild ancestors; cats use these meows to get their owners’ attention. Cats also use purring for a similar purpose, and they vary the sound of these purrs in different contexts. For instance, cats purr with more urgency when actively seeking food. Interestingly, cat owners are able to distinguish these subtle differences in their cats’ vocalizations; humans can identify the context of a cat vocalization, such as a meow, 40% more often than by chance when the vocalization belonged to their own cat, which was not observed when these vocalizations came from an unfamiliar cat [6]. 

As cat owners pick up on their pet’s communication patterns, the reverse is also true; cats become sensitive to their owners’ verbal and non-verbal communication cues. Studies have shown that cats can discriminate their name from other words. Cats also use non-verbal cues like body language to interpret the mood of their owners, and they use this information in their interactions with their owner. Cats vocalize more frequently and display more physical affection, like head rubs, to owners with depression [6]. 

Cats and dogs are surprisingly in-tune with their owners’ communication cues. But we’re still far from thinking that pets like Bunny the “talking dog” are able to think and speak like a human. Research such as the ongoing study in the Rossano lab at UCSD can potentially change that, however. Learning more about pet communication can bring benefits to both animals and humans. From allowing bomb-sniffing police dogs the ability to more clearly indicate their findings or enabling pet owners to identify their pets’ needs more easily, expanding our idea of how animals communicate with us can change our relationships with our pets for the better.

References

1. Madden E. The ‘Talking’ Dog of TikTok. The New York Times [Internet]. 2021 May 27 [cited 2023 May 10]. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/style/bunny-the-dog-animal-communication.html 
2. Fudge T. Dogs with something to say press buttons for words in UCSD cognition study. KPBS [Internet]. 2022 Jun 22 [cited 2023 May 10]. Available from: https://www.kpbs.org/news/2022/06/22/dogs-with-something-to-say-press-buttons-for-words-in-ucsd-cognition-study
3. Carroll L. Dogs understand foreign language, brain scans show. NBC News [Internet]. 2022 Jan 6 [cited 2023 May 10]. Available from: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/dogs-understand-foreign-language-brain-scans-show-rcna11074
4. Kaminski J, Nitzschner M. Do dogs get the point? A review of dog–human communication ability. Learn Motiv. 2013;44(4):294-302. doi:10.1016/j.lmot.2013.05.001.
5. Koyasu H, Kikusui T, Takagi S, Nagasawa M. The Gaze Communications Between Dogs/Cats and Humans: Recent Research Review and Future Directions. Front Psychol. 2020;11:613512. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.613512.
6. Turner D.C. The Mechanics of Social Interactions Between Cats and Their Owners. Front. Vet. Sci. 2021;8:650143. doi:10.3389/fvets.2021.650143.