Viral Videos of Dogs 'Talking' May Have Scientific Backing

Videos of dogs pressing buttons on a soundboard to "speak" to their owners have been going viral for quite some time now, but questions remained about whether the canines were actually communicating with their owners or simply responding to cues. A new study confirms that man's best friend might be smarter than we think. 

The research published in the Public Library of Science One journal details what scientists found when examining this phenomenon. The small study consisted of two parts. The first involved researchers visiting 30 dogs' homes and testing their responses to soundboard buttons, while the second relied on citizen science, or 29 dog owners doing the trials themselves at home with guidance from the team. 

The scientists found that dogs trained to use these soundboards responded correctly to words like "play" and "outside" regardless of whether the words were spoken out loud by their owners or reproduced by pressing a button on the soundboard. This implies that dogs are actually processing the words they hear rather than simply trying to understand their owners' body language or presence. 

"Our study suggests that dogs were more likely to perform play-related behaviors after an experimenter or their owner produced a play-related word, and were more likely to exhibit outside-related behaviors in response to an experimenter or their owner producing an outside-related word. This demonstrates that dogs are, at the very least, capable of learning an association between these words or buttons and their outcomes in the world," the authors wrote in the study. 

While TikTok videos have seemingly shown that dogs are smart enough to use these soundboards properly, this is the first scientific study of its kind to back up these claims. "Our findings provide the first evidence of button word comprehension by owner-trained soundboard-using dogs, and demonstrate that dogs' contextually appropriate responses to button presses were comparable regardless of the identity of the person using the soundboard, and the absence of other environmental cues related to that word," the team said. 

Study co-author Federico Rossano explained why the study is so significant in the grand scheme of things. "This study addresses public skepticism about whether dogs truly understand what the buttons mean," Rossano told Phys. "Our findings are important because they show that words matter to dogs, and that they respond to the words themselves, not just to associated cues."

Still, more research needs to be done to understand more about dogs' complex cognitive abilities and just how much they can understand—and respond to—human speech. 

"We're just scratching the surface in this study," Rossano said. "Future studies [should] explore how dogs actively use these buttons, including the meaning and systematicity behind sequences of button presses. Our research underscores the importance of studying animals in their home environment, providing a more ecologically valid understanding of their abilities."

Turns out you're not entirely wrong for thinking your dog is a genius that understands you.