Can speak 92 words . Meet Bunny, the ‘talking’ dog of TikTok & an inspiration behind scientific research
SECTIONS Can speak 92 words . Meet Bunny, the ‘talking’ dog of TikTok & an inspiration behind scientific researchBy Emma Madden, New York Times
Last Updated: May 27, 2021, 04:39 PM IST
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According to Devine, Bunny can use the buttons on her soundboard to form four-word phrases.
For at least 200 years, researchers have reported several instances of nonhuman animals demonstrating remarkable languagelike capabilities. (In picture. Bunny/Instagram)
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Alexis Devine said that she knew early on that Bunny, her sheepadoodle puppy, was destined to talk.
A 40-year-old artist and jewelry designer in Tacoma, Washington, Devine had pored over literature on canine cognition, communication and training in the months leading up to Bunny’s arrival.
A drug sniffing police dog in Washington indicated narcotics were inside 100 percent of the vehicles it sniffed, but police found drugs in just 29 percent of them.
Karma, a K-9 with the since-dissolved Republic Police Department operating near Washington state s border with Canada, would give the signal to police officers that every vehicle he sniffed was carrying drugs.
The signal - Karma sitting down when his police handler pointed to a vehicle s rear panel with the palm of their hand - would be given regardless of whether the driver possessed illegal narcotics or not.
By doing so, Karma essentially gave officers probable cause to search and seize every vehicle he sniffed, undercutting constitutional guarantees of due process.
Bunny, the dog that can talk, starts asking existential questions Salon 5 days ago Bunny the talking Dog Instagram/@what about bunny
When Bunny, TikTok s beloved talking Sheepadoodle, stared at herself in a mirror and asked who this? using her augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device s buttons, many believed she was having an existential crisis. Since then, the Internet-famous dog has seemingly only become more interested in her own dare we say sense of self.
More recently on April 24, Alexis Devine, Bunny s human parent, posted a video of Bunny pressing a button for dog, then a second button for what, a third button for dog and a fourth one for is. Dog what dog is? Devine narrated.
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When my father was young, a dog saved his life by leaping on a striking snake. Decades later, I watched our overfed ginger cat “mourn” Dad’s death, lying every day in the garage where he once worked, rubbing whiskers against his tools.
No one who has lived with a pet could deny they have feelings: affection, irritation, fear, perhaps even shame and jealousy, perhaps love. But is their behaviour always what it seems? Did my father’s dog, who was rather unfairly named Bimbo, pounce on the snake to protect him or was some wolfish hunting instinct surfacing at last? Did Max the cat really wonder where Dad had gone or had he just decided to annex the newly available garage?
Last modified on Tue 26 Jan 2021 23.37 EST
Whether you can teach an old dog new tricks might be a moot point, but it seems some canines can rapidly learn new words, and do so through play.
While young children are known to quickly pick up the names of new objects, the skill appears to be rare in animals.
However, some studies have suggested certain dogs can learn what objects are called. Among them a border collie called Rico reportedly managed to learn the names of more than 200 items, while Chaser, also a border collie, learned the names of more than 1,000 objects.