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Technology Idle

Company Claims Its Push Buttons for Dogs Trains Them to 'Talk' (csmonitor.com) 55

Posted by EditorDavid from the tweeters-and-woofers dept.
From a report: Have you ever wondered what your dog would say if it could speak to you? FluentPet promises the next best thing — buttons the company says you can train your pet to push if it's hungry, needs to go outside, or wants to play....

"We find that actually when dogs kind of know that they're being understood because they have the precision and specificity of the buttons, then they complain less because they're no longer wondering whether they actually communicated what they wanted to," said Leo Trottier, FluentPet CEO. At CES, the company announced FluentPet Connect, a new app that notifies owners when their dog presses a button and collects data on how the buttons are used.

FluentPet's starter kit comes with hextiles, a speaker, and six buttons for $159.95. The app does not require a subscription.
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Company Claims Its Push Buttons for Dogs Trains Them to 'Talk' More

Company Claims Its Push Buttons for Dogs Trains Them to 'Talk'

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  • Blatant ads as news? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by fracas ( 25196 )

    This product has been out for years. Nothing newsworthy.

    • Re:Blatant ads as news? (Score:5, Funny)

      by tomz16 ( 992375 ) on Sunday January 08, 2023 @01:46AM (#63189018)

      Woof! Slashvertising! Woof!

      • Re:Blatant ads as news? (Score:5, Funny)

        by EditorDavid ( 4512125 ) Works for Slashdot on Sunday January 08, 2023 @02:48PM (#63189982)
        Now I think you're just trolling me.

        I thought it was an interesting product -- a little weird, so fun to discuss. No, it's not an advertisement. No, nobody was paid for it.

        You know this at some level, right? It's just fun to accuse Slashdot's editors of "payola!" at random moments throughout the day, whenever there's a story about one single product? Okay, hope that was fun...

        Now can we return to the important business of leaving comments about talking dogs? :)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by skam240 ( 789197 )

          Oh c'mon now, you know complaining about Slashdot posts is a time honored tradition amongst users with too much free time. If they don't have that then their lives are empty!

        • Just wait until I mod you down for this off-topic post ........

    • Yahoo has been doing it for years.....

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by rlwinm ( 6158720 )
      Yup. There is a YouTube channel called "BilliSpeaks" where a cat uses this product and does pretty well at communicating with it.

      • Re:Blatant ads as news? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by haruchai ( 17472 ) on Sunday January 08, 2023 @04:01AM (#63189128)

        Yup. There is a YouTube channel called "BilliSpeaks" where a cat uses this product and does pretty well at communicating with it.

        Billi is my favorite, her combination of long pauses and frequently touching a button but not hard enough to activate it makes her seem deliberate & pensive as well as charminly passive-aggressive.
        And the way she walks around & between the buttons & activates the specific ones she wants without looking at them implies some sort of spatial memory map of the sounds / words she knows.
        What's most impressive is that she was already 10 or 11 years old when 1st introduced to the buttons and now "knows" over 60 including an "oops"
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

        • Mad. Mad. Mad⦠mad. Ma, m, mad.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by UpnAtom ( 551727 )

          Been around cats for 25 years. Their ability to navigate mess, treading only in space, used to amaze me.

          Cat always uses its left front paw.

          An AI could communicate this well. There's no doubt the cat is way smarter.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by haruchai ( 17472 )

            "Been around cats for 25 years. Their ability to navigate mess, treading only in space, used to amaze me."
            A friend had several cats, one of whom was completely blind yet could navigate the house just as quickly, rarely bumping into anything, could use the stairs & play with the others

    • Professor Schwartzman answered this question decades ago with his canine decoder (Gary Larson): https://i.pinimg.com/736x/8b/9... [pinimg.com]

      If you've ever owned or looked after a dog, you quickly realise they're smart & they've all worked out a pretty good system of signals to humans for themselves. They don't need any tech; just for us to read their cues. Plus, you'd have to train the dog how to use the button system & which button means what. Save yourselves $160.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        Very much this. Dogs (and cats) communicate at least as well without the buttons. If you can't guess what a single bark to draw your attention followed by nudging the dog food bag with it's nose means, perhaps you shouldn't own a dog. Likewise for a cat, sitting next to the empty food bowl and staring at you expectantly...

  • Simpsons called it (Score:3, Funny)

    by Slashythenkilly ( 7027842 ) on Sunday January 08, 2023 @01:48AM (#63189022)
    Homer's brother (Danny Devito) made a baby translator for equally gullible parents.

  • "Food food food! Can I lick my balls? Food food food!"

  • Watchin' a fan, watchin' a fan . . . watchin' a fan . . .

    WHOA gottapee!

  • Previous product (Score:3)

    by Corbets ( 169101 ) on Sunday January 08, 2023 @02:15AM (#63189046) Homepage

    I cannot speak to their current product (see what I did there?).

    But I had the CleverPet when it first came out. Aside from being damage prone such that one of the buttons wore out, it was a really cool toy that my Labrador loved. He would play with it all the time.

    I wish they would have come out with the promised new iteration of that instead of producing something new.

    • Did your dog ever show any signs of gaining an understanding of the meaning of the buttons?

      • I've seen videos of cats that were trained to use these buttons successfully to say what they want. I imagine dogs would be trainable as well.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Yes, they do show signs of this. Many combine words to coin new nouns as combinations as the number of words they have available on buttons is for most people under fifty due to space considerations. For example, bone water for ice (chewable water). The ability to come up with and consistently use combinations very much implies understanding of the meaning.

        • Not just space considerations... these buttons are VERY expensive for some printed foam board and inexpensive 5 second voice recorders housed in a plastic button... which aren't great quality and seem to fail fairly regularly given how often some owners are replacing buttons on youtube. They are about $10 a button one the best value large packs and you easily need 20-50 buttons if your pet actually manages to learn to use them. The two button and foam board 'tester kit' is $35 plus shipping (free shipping

        • Pretty sure the only one trained on the meaning of "bone water" there was you

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      We use Talking Tiles, and they are virtually bomb proof.

  • See them in action (Score:3, Informative)

    by zukakog ( 909670 ) on Sunday January 08, 2023 @02:43AM (#63189078)

    If you want to see these in action, just search for "what about bunny" on YouTube or tiktok. I've been watching them for a few years now.

  • Typical pet conversation (Score:5, Funny)

    by freeze128 ( 544774 ) on Sunday January 08, 2023 @02:51AM (#63189084)
    Here is how a typical conversation with your pet will go:

    Pet: "Food"
    Owner: "No, not now. Food Later."
    Pet: "Mad"

  • Time to link this [imgur.com] again.

  • Our Weimaraner quickly figured out how these things worked, used them a few times then decided she hated them. After that, every time we'd try to get her to use them she would look away with an 'I'm over it' attitude. She's a riot.
  • Here it is from a cat's perspective: When I do this with my paw, my stupid human responds in a primitive manner - always assuming I want food or to pee. Such a limited scope of communication, I might as well sign it to her.

  • One born every minute (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lsllll ( 830002 ) on Sunday January 08, 2023 @04:09AM (#63189138)
    A sucker, that is. If you pay even minimal attention to dogs, you'll know when they need to go out, or when they need to play. And they want to eat all the time. When I had a dog, I didn't need buttons for those functions. She got fed twice a day and her bowl was empty otherwise. Funny thing is it didn't even matter if I knew what she wanted to do. She understood words when I said them and I just watched her reaction. "You want to take a walk?" Tail wagging? Yes. You want to go out? Walk towards the back door. Yes. It's like she understood English without needing any devices.

    • Same with my parent's dogs.
      "No" - stop what they're doing
      Their name - pay attention, come over, etc...
      "Walk" - they're by the door. One will be grabbing at his leash.
      "Treat" - they're in the kitchen.
      "Go lay down" - leave the dining room/kitchen and go lay down in the living room.
      "Out!" - leave the kitchen/dining room.
      Etc...

      Most of this stuff isn't what we've trained them on like "sit", but they learn it nonetheless.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      We have buttons as we wanted to give them the opportunity to be specific about their communication if they wanted to, even given that yes you can often determine what they want. It allows them to do things like say they miss me when I'm at work or ask for very specific activities like going for a walk to a specific location. They also seem to use the no button to chastise the cat (they have a button for cat too) when the cat is trying to climb the bookshelves, etc. If they have made their intent clear witho

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by haruchai ( 17472 )

      BilliSpeaks asks for "Dad" when he's away for more than a day & sometimes for "Grandma", her owner's mother, who does NOT live with them. She also sometimes asks for specific things such as catnip, fan toy and being petted and will specify back or chin
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • What I find most hilarious about this debate is all the people like you who think this product is for you to talk to the dog. It's for the dog to talk to you. You can't even read and we're supposed to care about your opinion on communication technology for pets.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by genixia ( 220387 )

      I wish we'd had this for my incredibly smart dog, and trained him with the word "hurt". He loved water, but it seemed like the sight of a raindrop could give him an ear infection. We'd usually work it out after a couple of days of him being slightly "off", but we could have saved him some of that time before starting treatment. Also, when he started presenting his right rump to us in his seventh year, maybe we wouldn't have interpreted it as a request for back scratches, but as a sign that he could feel

  • "Have you ever wondered what your dog would say if it could speak to you? "

    Yes, he'd say: How about a walk, you lazy bastard!

  • Bells (Score:2)

    by SETY ( 46845 )

    Hanging jingle bells by the door. Dog nudges them when they want to go out. Good for younger dogs.
    Older dogs might use them to train the human to come hither every time they ring them. Annoying.
    Works well with kids who can’t read dog signals and prevents a crap on the floor,

  • ..."I've watched you have sex and it's left me with dog-PTSD"

  • ... every dog that ever entered the household 'got it' almost immediately, ring the bell to get let out. It seems almost instinctive ... which raises a lot of questions.

  • You could learn how the dog talks to you. Lived with dogs my entire life. They already know how to tell you things, you just don't know how to listen.

  • No need for a product (Score:3)

    by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Sunday January 08, 2023 @06:37PM (#63190414) Homepage

    We taught two dogs we've had, to bark once when they needed to go to the bathroom. Other things they wanted to tell us came naturally. We knew when they were hungry, because they would lead us to their food bowl. We knew when they were out of water, because they would drag the water dish around. Yes, dogs can understand and be understood, it doesn't take some company's whiz-bang product.

  • This sounds like a commercialization of a science experiment that has been going on in one private residence for a couple of years now. Google my subject heading [google.com] for more information and to see what this actually looks like in use. It's at least mildly entertaining, if not outright fascinating.

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