Dogs TALK with humans using soundboards for first time… and what they told owners was depressing [Video]

12:43 EST 10 Dec 2024, updated 12:52 EST 10 Dec 2024

Dogs are capable of forming two-word combinations when using a soundboard to communicate with humans, a groundbreaking study has found.

In the last few years, thousands of dogs have been trained to use soundboards with buttons that can be pressed to produce human words or phrases. 

Some have even become social media sensations, like the TikTok famous sheepadoodle Bunny. 

But scientists still weren’t sure whether these ‘talking’ dogs were pressing buttons randomly, or deliberately. 

Now, a new analysis has revealed that the dogs’ behavior cannot be explained by random pressing, and that certain two-button combinations appear too often to be the result of random chance, the study states. 

The researchers found that the most commonly used buttons were related to the dogs’ essential needs, such as ‘outside,’ ‘treat,’ ‘play’ and ‘potty.’

Combinations like ‘outside’ + ‘potty’ or ‘food’ + ‘water’ also occurred too frequently to be accidental, …