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Have you ever wanted to know

what your dog is thinking?

Water.

Now some dog owners say

they do know.
Walk.

Thanks to buttons that seem

to give dogs
the ability to talk.

Snuffle mat.

It's, like,
how is this even possible?

Come outside.

Some dogs are saying so much

that scientists have decided
to study them.

Button.

Treat.

Yeah, so good--
go get it.

We need to look into this.

They've set up the largest

animal communication study
in history...

Play, play, play.

...with thousands of dogs
from around the world.

Later.

Come. Come.

Play. Play. Play.

What we want to see is,

where can we take this
and how far can dogs go?

Dog on site!

We know we can train dogs
to do incredible things.

But could we really teach them

to speak our language?

Snug, snuggle.

You want a snuggle?
Come here.

She knows what she's saying.

She's communicating with me.

Treat. Fridge.

Treat. Treat. Treat.

I know what dogs are capable of

in terms of
their linguistic ability.

But I think that people

read a little bit too far
into things.

Hungry.

So, what's really going on here?

Outside.

Are they just pushing
our buttons?

I love you.

Or can dogs talk?

Food.

Right now, on "NOVA."

This is Stella,

an Australian cattle dog/
Catahoula mix.

It's late,
but Stella isn't ready for bed.

Yes.

Park.

Want.

Stella appears to be talking.

You want to go to the park?

It's a little late
to go to the park.

This video has been
sped up a little,

but nothing has been edited in
or out.

Do you want to go for a walk
instead?

Yes.

Want.

Outside.

Okay, we'll go for a walk.

Let's get your leash on.

Leash.

On.

Stella has been taught
to use word buttons.

Walk.

Her owner, Christina Hunger,

can record different words
on each of the buttons.

Stella.

Stella is the world's first
talking dog.

It's a big claim.

So what makes Christina think
it's true?

Christina.

Christina worked
as a speech therapist

and used communication devices
with children

who struggled to speak.

What?

It was my job
as a speech therapist

to find other ways for kids
to talk

if they couldn't use
their verbal speech.

When I first brought
Stella home,

I had so many observations

about how well
she was communicating

with her gestures
and her body language.

She would whine
to get our attention.

She would paw at her water dish
when it was empty.

She would look at me, then look
to an object that she wanted.

This is all so similar to how
kids start learning language.

And it got me thinking,
if she's already communicating

so similarly to kids
right before they start talking,

what would happen
if she had another way to talk?

Christina got some buttons
for Stella

to see what would happen.

I was pushing the button
as I was saying the word.

Outside?

And for the first couple
of weeks,

she didn't pay attention
to the buttons at all.

Even when Stella became
interested in the buttons,

it took a while
before she managed to press one.

You're so close, Stella.

But finally, she cracked it.

And the next morning,
Christina caught it on camera.

Outside!

Let's go outside!

I was ecstatic.

And then when she went outside,

she went to the bathroom
right away.

So, to me,
the most important part

was seeing the communication
intent behind it.

Outside.

She was using a word
appropriately and functionally.

Stella is now six years old.

What do you want, girl?

And uses far more buttons
than the three she started with.

On Stella's main board here,

we have some places
that she likes to go.

Park.

And...
Beach.

The beach.

Where.

If she wants to know
where we're heading out.

Happy.

As Stella started to use
her buttons more,

Christina began
sharing her videos online.

We left our apartment one day
and we set up a camera

just to see, you know, what
she would do while we were gone.

Where?

I had never heard her
made a sound like that.

It was heartbreaking.

Stella's videos went viral

and have turned her
into a social media phenomenon.

We're joined now
by Christina Hunger,

a speech pathologist
in San Diego,

owner of the very
clever Stella.

Outside.

And so, Christina,
what does Stella say the most?

She definitely
says "outside" the most.

She absolutely loves
being outside.

Outside.

As news of Stella and her word
buttons has spread...

No, stand up.

...other so-called talking dogs
have flooded social media

with their seemingly amazing
feats of communication.

Mommy.

These dogs seem to be using
our words.

Box.

So is that enough to say
they're talking?

Paw.

Do they really understand
what they're saying?

Walk, walk, walk.

Or is their button-pushing
just random?

Love you.

I love you,
too, Cop.

I love you, too.

Federico Rossano is director
of the Comparative Cognition Lab

at the University of California,
San Diego.

As dogs using word buttons

gained a following
on social media,

Federico was approached
to study them.

But he was skeptical.

I most certainly did not want
to get involved in it.

I have said no so many times.

One of the thing
about social media

is that we try
to portray ourselves

always happy and excited

and at the best of our life.

Let's go!

And we usually don't post

all the things that go wrong

and all the accidents.

If dog owners only post clips
of their dogs

pressing word buttons
that seem to make sense

and ignore
all the random presses,

it would be
completely misleading.

The risk of social media,
of course,

is that because there is,
you know, money coming with it,

there is attention
coming with it,

there might be a way
of exploiting social media,

so creating clips that you think
would attract more attention.

Treat.

But despite Federico's concerns
about social media,

he saw some clips
that stunned him.

Mad.

Why are you mad?

Why mad?

Ouch.

Where is your ouch?

Where ouch?

Stranger.

In your ear?

Where stranger?

Paw.

In your paw?

Let me see your paw.

Okay, I'm gonna put this down
and check.

This was the stranger
in her paw.

She's got a mat
between her-- ow!-- toes.

It looked as if they were having
a conversation.

And I was, like,
wow, if that is possible,

where, like, a human can talk

and the animal can just
respond with the buttons,

that would be amazing.

What we want is
to look at these anecdotes

and think,
is this even possible?

And if it has not been trained
extensively,

if it seems to be spontaneous,

then the next question is,

can we elicit it
in a more systematic way?

Okay.

Pour it, pour it there?

The trouble is,
past efforts to teach animals

to use our language have been
incredibly controversial.

Which color?

That one?
The blue one.

The way it was done
was basically,

a researcher would get
one animal,

and then train this animal
to learn,

for example, sign language,

or to learn how to use
other devices.

Sometimes it looked like
something extraordinary,

but if you only have one animal,
it's very hard to tell

how that came about

or what that really means

from the perspective
of cognition

and what that means about how
they're thinking.

After several studies,
focused on one or two animals

taken out
of their natural habitats,

and with concern
about researchers

over-interpreting results,

the entire field of research
was called into question.

Eat. Eat.

So when the button dogs
emerged on social media,

many of Federico's colleagues

thought he'd be unwise
to get involved.

I had scientists calling me

at the beginning of this study,

saying, "Do you know what
you're getting yourself into?

You might actually lose your job
because of what you're doing."

But this time,

Federico realized
that instead of all the research

being based on one or two
highly trained subjects...

Ball.

...there was a huge pool
of button-pressing dogs.

So he decided to study them.

What happens if you start
tracking thousands of animals

at the same time?

He asked Amalia Bastos,

a researcher
in animal cognition,

to join him.

Where can we take this

and how far can dogs go?

We need to actually
test things out empirically

to find out what's going on.

Federico and Amalia have been

recruiting participants
from around the world.

WOMAN

While early contributors
in the study

used simple spreadsheets to log
their dogs' button presses,

many owners are now
using buttons

that automatically record which
words are pressed and when.

Working.

Every time a button
is pressed...

Snuggle.

...that goes straight
into the app,

and then we can download
through the app

the kind of data
that has been collected.

And what we ask you to do

is to basically tell us,
was it you

or was the dog?

As of now, I think we have
approximately

6,500 people using the app.

Play.

We know that some dogs seem
to make sense some of the time

with their button presses.

But the data that Federico
is collecting

will help his team...
Outside.

...understand
the bigger picture:

do the thousands of dogs
taking part

know what they're doing
with buttons?

Or is most of it just random?

Later.

First, Federico needs to check

that the dogs
actually understand

the words on the buttons
when they hear them.

Good boy.

His colleague Amalia
has visited several dogs

with a team of researchers
to conduct an experiment.

This is a clip from our first

experimental study.

This is Mokai.

You're so calm, hm?

Federico and Amalia
need to test whether a word

generated by a button

means the same thing to a dog
as when that same word

is spoken by a person.

Who's having some
water?

Because when we say words,

we add all sorts
of extra details:

pitch, tone, body language.

You are the
messiest drinker.

But a word from a button
is the same every time.

The first study had to be:

do the dogs that are trained
with these buttons

understand the meaning
of the words

that are associated with it?

And can we show
that they would respond

not just to their owners,

but they will respond to others
pushing those buttons?

All right.

This is Kai,
trial number four.

The experimenter is wearing
headphones,

so that she could not hear
the word that is produced

once you push that button.

And the instruction
that she has in this case

will be something like,

push the red button.

Play.

The research team
wore headphones

and owners were blindfolded,

to make sure neither
could inadvertently give clues

about which button
had been pressed.

And then you see the dog goes
straight for the toy basket,

retrieves the ball,

like, "Let's play."

And so it's
contextually appropriate

with respect to what button
had just been pressed.

It's the simplest possible test.

58 other dogs were also tested.

Chrissy!

Chris!

Outside.

And the results showed that the
dogs responded appropriately

to the "play" and "outside"
buttons...

Outside.

...with no other cues,

just as they'd respond

to those words spoken directly
by a human.

Play.

That was critical for us,

because if they did not
understand

the meaning of words...

Play.
...if they did not
respond in a way

that would suggest
they understand it,

then there's no point in moving
forward with any other research.

The dogs didn't react
appropriately

to hearing a "food" button.

Scout!

But it's clear that they can
respond to at least

some of their buttons
in a useful, communicative way.

Play.

But that doesn't tell us
whether they could use them

correctly themselves.

We know that dogs can respond

appropriately to words,

but that could just be
conditioning,

that could just be training.

So whether or not
they understand

what the word itself means

is much harder to test.

Arik Kershenbaum studies
animal communication

at the University of Cambridge
in England.

So this ability to hear
the word "sit,"

and to know that if they sit,
they will get a reward,

is a very, very powerful
mechanism.

But just because an animal
responds correctly

to a particular command
that is given in language

doesn't mean that they
understand the language of it.

Whether they're responding
to commands

or pushing buttons themselves,

the point is,

it's incredibly hard to know

how much dogs actually
understand

the words they're hearing
or using.

Good boy-- you gonna try not
to bark at stuff today? Yeah?

Can you go to bed?

This is Rohan.

Yeah, good boy.

Amalia's 23-month-old
Australian shepherd.

Ready?

Break.

Button.

Treat.

Yeah, so good,
go get it.

Thanks.

Love you.

Good boy.

Go to bed.

So what we saw looked
like a conversation,

where the dog understood
what it was saying,

and we had a back-and-forth.

In actual fact, these were

trained interactions,
where the dog

was actually just trained
to press the buttons as a trick.

Button.

Treat. Treat.
That's the one.

He doesn't actually know
what that button means.

Button.

It could have had a bird chirp
or it could have had,

you know, siren sound.

It could have been
literally anything,

and he would have performed the
behavior exactly the same way.

Love you,
thanks, love you, love you.

You know, the fact
that they're

human-language words
is completely arbitrary.

Love you. Thanks.

It's just associative learning.

Rohan has learned

to associate an action,
like pressing a button,

with an outcome,
like getting a treat.

Treat. Treat. Treat.

That's so good,
I know.

He likes treats, so he keeps
pressing the buttons.

It's known as
"associative learning"

or "conditioning."
Button.

Treat.
Yes.

But it doesn't mean he knows
what the words

"treat" or "thanks"
or "love you"

actually mean.

Everything in life starts
through associative learning,

and actually, humans learn
through associative learning.

Good boy.

Associative learning is common
to pretty much all animals.

Break.

And it doesn't require

any sort of complex cognition
that we should be impressed by.

Treat.

You could easily teach a mouse
to press buttons.

Okay, you got that one--
button.

And that's the big problem.

Just because they can
press buttons that say words

doesn't necessarily mean

the dogs have
any real understanding

of what those words mean.

Perhaps they just enjoy
the reward they get,

whether that's a treat
or just some attention.

Good boy.

Down.

So could dogs learn to use
different buttons

to get different things?

Could they choose which ones
to press

because of the specific words
attached to them?

It's something Federico
is finally starting to answer.

He's gathered data
on the word buttons being used

by an astonishing 10,000 dogs
in almost 50 countries.

It's the largest animal
communication study in history.

Just to give you an example,

in the last three months,

we have received

more than one million
button presses

from dogs in our pool.

All done.

All that data can help to show

whether dog button use
is random or intentional.

I love you.

Look.

In principle,
the dog could just be spamming

the, the soundboard,
just coming there,

touching buttons randomly.

Love you. Treat.

And if it's random,

we should stop
doing this research, right?

Why are you do, looking
into something

that's completely random?

And what if the dogs
are just pressing buttons

that are easy to reach?

What can happen, of course,

is that the dog might just
end up pushing, for example,

these two buttons

that are close
to each other

just because they are adjacent
to each other

and it's just easy for them.

And so, it is very important
for us to know

not just which buttons
they have, participants have,

but also how they're laid out,
so that we can, for example,

run analysis to see

the dogs seem to be actually
doing something intentionally.

Federico's analysis of over
ten million button presses

by thousands of dogs
over almost two years

shows that these
are the most popular words.

Of course, all the words
on soundboards

are initially put there
by humans.

But these are the ones
that the dogs are pressing most.

And among these words,

Federico has found that
some are much more popular.

The dogs are choosing to press
them more than others.

So here, the size of the word
is representative of the number

of presses
across the population.

And "play," "outside," "food"
are the buttons that the dogs

tend to press the most,

which is very much in line
with being a dog.

You can also see "water,"
"potty," "treat," "all done."

They don't use a lot,
other words that might not be

quite in line
with what we expect,

like "training" or
"mad or "friend."

The fact that some words
are used more than others...

Bed.

...shows that
across the population,

the button use isn't random.

Help.

If it was random, you would
just have all the buttons

that you have on the soundboard

have an equal probability
of being pressed.

So across the data set,

dogs definitely show preference
for certain words.

Outside.

Seemingly, things they want:

to go outside, to get food,
to play.

But should we be impressed
or surprised by that?

We know a lot of animal
communication is asking others,

can be humans or non-humans,
to do things for them.

In principle,
there is no difference

between pushing the buttons
and saying, "Outside,"

and trying to tell you
by scratching on the door

that they want to go outside.

It's another way
of communicating.

So could dogs actually
use buttons in a way

that goes beyond what
they can already communicate?

Outside.

Could they start
to use language?

All animals communicate.

All animals communicate

and can understand
communication,

but not all communication
is language.

Humans communicate
using language.

Obviously,
this is our big difference

from all other animals.

My definition of language,

just a simple rule of thumb
that seems to work really well,

is, language is the ability
or at least the potential

to convey an unlimited number
of concepts.

Doesn't matter how you do it,

but what makes humans special

is that we can communicate
to each other

anything, any concept.

There's no end to the books
that will ever be written

or the ideas that we can convey,

and no animals that we know of
can do that.

No one believes dogs
could communicate

absolutely any concept to us
using words.

But how far could they go
on the spectrum

between communication
and language?

I think really, communication
becomes language

when you cross that boundary
from a signal

that manipulates
other individuals

to a system by which information
is exchanged between individuals

who understand
that their conversation partner

is also participating
in that conversation.

Could dogs use words to do more
than what they already do

with body language
and vocalizations?

Could they communicate about
more than just what they want?

The thing is, dogs could be
uniquely positioned

to learn our language
because of how they evolved.

All dogs evolved from wolves,
their wild ancestors.

More than 10,000 years ago,

some wolves were taken in
by humans and domesticated.

Over generations spent
living with and around us,

they evolved in different ways,
according to how we bred them.

We selected traits
that we valued,

leading to breeds
that were smaller and cuter,

or faster and slimmer,

or bigger and stronger.

And of course, over time,
we favored dogs

that could communicate well
with us.

Dogs that were good
at understanding

what we're trying to say.

There does seem to be something
very special

about what happened during that
domestication process

that led dogs to be excellent
understanders of humans,

and humans to be excellent
understanders of dogs, as well.

That communication
between humans and dogs

can be so clear...

...that we can form
incredibly constructive

working relationships with them.

Yeah!

Amritha Mallikarjun works at

the University of Pennsylvania's
Working Dog Center.

I think the human-dog
relationship is so special.

The way that we

work together as human-dog teams

is just unlike any other

relationship that you have.

Amritha and her colleague
Emma Gaalaas Mullaney

help the dogs here to go on

to careers in search and rescue.

It's all about training,

and training is all
about communication.

Dog on site!

Come on, go find.

Today, they're working
with Andy,

an 11-month-old black Labrador,

who has to find someone
hidden in the rubble.

Andy, turn! Good boy!

Go find!

Because there are always people

standing around
on the rubble pile,

he knows not to find
the people that he can see,

but to find hidden people, specifically.

When Andy finds his target,

he starts barking,

and he won't stop
until his team knows

what he's done.

Yes!

What a good boy!

That was so good, yeah, yeah!
Whoo-hoo!

There is a remarkable array
of skills on display.

Good job, buddy!

But they are only helpful
to the team

because Andy has learned
what's expected of him.

These dogs could not do
the work they do

if we didn't have the strength
of our communication.

The communication between dogs
and humans is

how we save lives.

That was so good!
That was so good!

In addition to word forms,

dogs are also paying attention
to the way our body moves.

They're paying attention
to where we're looking.

They're paying attention
if we're pointing at things

or if we're gesturing at things.

They're paying attention
to the tone of our voice.

So they're reading things
off of us all the time,

you know, even as subtle
as an arm gesture.

With this extraordinary ability
and desire of dogs

to communicate with us,

could they be better-suited
to learning our language

than the animals that we've
tried to teach in the past?

Because there are some dogs

that seem to have
an incredible ability

to recognize large numbers
of words.

This is Gaia,
a six-year-old border collie.

And this is Isabella Ruiz,
Gaia's owner.

While most dogs are good
at learning action words

like "sit" and "stay,"

very few are able to easily
learn the names of objects.

But that's not the case
with Gaia.

Gaia has 215 toys now.

And she knows all of them
by name.

It's a lot of toys now for us
to remember, so,

we did a catalogue of the toys
to remember their names,

but Gaia always knows the toys.

So yeah, I think her memory
is better than ours.

Isabella enrolled Gaia
in a study

called the Genius Dog Challenge.

It's run by Claudia Fugazza,

who studies canine cognition.

She's traveled here
all the way from Hungary,

where she works

with one of the world's leading
canine research groups.

Gaia is one of the, what we call
the gifted word learner dogs,

and these are dogs
that have a very special talent

for learning the name of toys,
and they learn very fast.

Only a few dogs around the world
seem to have this capacity.

Go, go!

One of the most capable dogs

at learning object names

was Chaser, a border collie

who knew the names
of over 1,000 toys.

So far, Claudia has found
fewer than 50 dogs

around the world

who are good enough
at learning object names

to take part in her study.

Hello!
Hi, Gaia, hello, girl!

She's traveled here
to put Gaia to the test.

Thank you.

So I got something
for Gaia.

Gaia!

Look at here--
maybe there's something for you.

That's for you.

Yeah.

Coffee?

Coffee.

A little test shows
just how quickly

Gaia can learn the name
of a new toy.

RUIZ

Hey?

RUIZ

Good girl, she
got it.

So she learns really quick.

That was a matter of

couple of minutes playing,

and she already got
this new name.

But Claudia already knows

that Gaia is exceptionally
talented

at learning the names of toys.

Coffee!

She wants to find out whether
Gaia's cognitive skills

go a step further.

Gaia knows that "tug"
and "fetch" are games to play.

Last week, she was given
two new toys,

one to tug and one to fetch.

New toys.

Can she figure out
which toy goes with which game,

based on how she plays with it?

This one, I will play
like this.

Isabella hasn't given
the toys any names

and hasn't said the words
"tug" or "fetch"

when playing with them.

This one, we've been playing
like this,

but I, I don't say the name
of the category, so, yeah.

Is Gaia smart enough

to figure out
which is a "fetch" toy

and which is a "tug" toy,

even though these words haven't
been used with these toys?

So are they able
to sort those items

into the tug
or the fetch category

just based on the way you play?

RUIZ

...Fetch?

Come on, come on,
come on.

Good girl!
Good girl!

Good girl,
you got the fetch.
Good girl!

Good girl!

Gaia.

...Tug?

Good doggy!
Good girl!

Good doggy.
Yeah.

Yeah.
That's a good girl.

Yeah! Go, go, go!

Yeah!

Well, I have to say, I had
no idea how this would go.

But that was really,
really exciting.

Totally, I believe
this is a big step

in our understanding
of dogs' minds.

So, she was able to assign
this toy to the named category

without ever having heard
that name paired with that toy.

What Gaia has done
seems different

from just simple conditioning
or associative learning.

For sure,

Gaia could not have associated
the name "fetch" or "tug"

to the specific item,

because she has never heard
that name

while seeing that toy
or while playing with that toy.

This is not possible.

She could not have learned that
this way.

It seems some dogs
can understand

that one word can refer
to a whole category of objects--

not just one individual thing.

But that's just words
that they're hearing.

Could some dogs also understand

that they could use
a button word

in different situations?

Meet Parker.

She's a beagle cross and
a prolific user of word buttons.

Water.

So Parker is a bit atypical.

When we first got them,
it took her

about 30 seconds, maybe, not
even, to press her first button.

And by the, you know, end of
that kind of evening,

she had pressed, at least
experimentally, all six of them.

Snug, snuggle.

You want to snuggle?
Come here.

Her owner, Sascha Crasnow,

enrolled Parker
in Federico's study

as soon as the buttons arrived.

She definitely says things
with the buttons

that she would not be able
to communicate to me otherwise.

Snuffle mat.

So a snuffle mat has,

you know, sort of these layers
or these little pockets,

little places you can kind of
hide food,

and then a puzzle...

...is sort of
what it sounds like.

It's another way to kind of
do mental enrichment

while they're eating.

But if I give her food
in a snuffle mat,

and she wants a puzzle that day,

she will refuse
to eat that food.

And if I take the exact same
food and pour it into a puzzle,

she will then eat that food.

And if I didn't have
the buttons,

I would think she was just
off her food, right?

That maybe there was something
wrong with it.

But no, she's just
very particular

about the experience she wants
while she's eating.

Of course, there may
always be a temptation

for owners to over-interpret
their pets' use of word buttons.

Food.

Ball.

But Parker certainly seems
more capable than most.

One time, when I was

kind of just out
for maybe an hour or so,

she pressed "potty."

Potty, potty.

And then, on the video,
you can see that she throws up.

And then she goes
and presses "help."

Help.

Amalia, Federico's colleague,

felt that use of the word "help"

suggested greater
cognitive abilities

than most of the button words
used by dogs.

So with most of
the buttons that dogs have,

like "food" or "play" or "walk,"

these are simple associations

that are related
to one particular context.

Help.

"Help" is interesting,

because it's a little bit
more general

than a lot of the simpler
buttons

that these dogs might have.

She decided to set up
an experiment

called The Impossible Task.

Come on!

Sascha and Parker took part.

Sit-- wait.

So the way that the study
is set up is,

we have this mat on the floor
here,

and it's got a Tupperware
in the middle.

First, the owners give the dogs
opportunities

over four different trials

to obtain a food reward
from inside the Tupperware,

and at that point,
the lid is open.

And at all these stages,
the dog can knock off the lid

and eat the food
inside the Tupperware

without much difficulty.

Until, in the very final trial,

the fifth trial, the Tupperware
is completely locked,

and that's the point at which
the dog might need help

to access the food.

The owners are not allowed
to speak to the dog,

point or gesture at the dog,

look at their dog--
nothing at all.

I didn't know
what Parker would do

in that circumstance,

whether she would use
the buttons or not.

We can see she's immediately
gone to Sascha,

and she's climbed
onto Sascha's back,

trying to get her attention.

But what we're interested in is,

can these dogs then
make that leap and use a word?

Help. Look.

She presses "help," "look,"

and then she looks to Sascha.

Parker had never before been
presented with this scenario,

and so had never used the words
"look" or "help"

in this context.

Help. Help. Look. Look.

So because it's the very first
time that they've seen this,

it tells us two things.

It tells us the behavior
wasn't trained

and it tells us that the dog is
having to think about what this

requires from them,

in terms of communication
to their owner,

and that they need to generalize
a button

that they've not used
in this context before.

Help. Help. Help.

It seems from this experiment...
Look. Look.

...that Parker understands
that the word "help"

can be used in a broad range
of scenarios.

Oh, hi! Do you need help?

There you go.

As well as using words
in new, untrained ways,

a huge step would be if dogs
were using words

to do more than just
ask for things.

What we're actually
interested in

is whether dogs might be
able to use

the soundboards
not just as a vending machine,

where they're requesting things
from humans,

but actually understand it
as a communicative device.

So humans do not just
request things,

humans can inform.

It's a thing that humans
do all the time.

Um, toddlers start doing it--
they will point at the moon

and say "moon," and, you know,
they're not requesting the moon,

they're just letting you know
the moon is there.

Right or wrong,

it's something
that some dog owners believe

their dogs are capable of.

Though of course,
they may have a tendency

to read too much
into their dogs' button presses.

Parker uses the buttons
to narrate a decent amount.

Um, she has narrated me watering
the plants quite a bit.

She'll narrate also things
she does sometimes.

Settle.

She's pressed "settle" before,

and then just gone into her bed
and lie down.

She didn't get anything from me
for it.

She just pressed "settle"

and then she settled.

It's impossible to know for sure
whether Parker

really was commenting
on what she was doing.

But other dogs, like Copper,

a three-and-a-half-year-old
Labrador,

also seem to be using buttons to
do more than just make requests.

Outside. Pool.

Outside pool.

Outside pool
maybe tomorrow.

Soon.

Outside pool later.

Outside. Pool.

Later.
Later.

Sad.

Oh, my goodness--
Copper.

It looks like Copper
was using her buttons

to express emotion.

But of course,
we don't know for sure.

An animal could learn
that pressing the "sad" button

gets attention.

And, and once they've learnt
that,

they can manipulate
these, these different concepts

in, in quite complex ways,

without understanding there's
a semantic meaning behind it.

Outside pool later.

From the data being
submitted by dog owners,

Federico has found
that many believe their dogs

are using buttons to do more
than just ask for things.

While 50% of button presses

were categorized as requests,

more than five percent of
presses were believed by owners

to be sharing thoughts
and feelings.

Six percent were informing,

as well as 6.4 percent described
by owners as "narrating."

Crucially, these aren't

scientifically validated
reports.

They're just what owners believe
their dogs are doing.

Knowing for certain
what a dog means

when it uses words,
or thinks when it hears words,

is much harder.

But in Budapest, Hungary,

Marianna Boros wants to find out
what's happening

inside a dog's brain

when it hears words it knows.

For most people, we have

a mental representation

of things
from the external world,

so we have a mental
representation of an object,

some kind of memory
of that thing.

We can imagine it in a way
that, we hear the word "ball,"

we will see in our mental
imagery a ball.

Marianna wants to test

whether dogs' brains
might work similarly.

When a dog hears a word,

does it conjure up an image
of that thing in its head?

Hello.

To find out,

she's going to study
the brain activity of Demi,

an 11-year-old
Swiss shepherd dog.

So right now, I'm putting on

the electrodes
on Demi's head.

These will measure
the brain signal.

Demi's owner, Timi,

has brought in
some of Demi's toys.

Demi hears a message
telling her what toy

she's about to see.

RECORDED VOICE

Sometimes,
Timi shows her that toy.

RECORDED VOICE

But sometimes,

Timi shows a different toy

than what Demi is expecting.

The idea is that if the dog sees
a different object,

it should be somehow surprised,

and this surprise effect

should be visible
in the E.E.G. signal.

RECORDED VOICE

What we can see here
is that if a dog saw

an object that matched the word
that he just heard,

this is the response
that we get.

But when we violate their
expectations,

so we show
a different object,

then we get a more positive
response

in the E.E.G. signal.

Marianna believes

that the difference
in electrical activity

indicates
that when dogs hear a word,

it can evoke a mental
representation of an object.

We can claim,
based on this study,

that when they hear
the name of an object,

they activate something, the
so-called memory of this object.

So we think that the dog
is actually surprised

when it sees a different thing,

but it is surprised
because it has an expectation

and because it understands
the meaning of that word.

That's a qualitatively
different way

of using language,

as opposed
to associative learning.

So yes, I would say

there's a possibility
that they understand words

similarly to us.

There are limitations
in interpreting

E.E.G. signals like these

and figuring out exactly
what they tell us

about how much an animal
really understands.

But if dogs do understand words

in similar ways to us,

could they start
putting them together

and using them
in more complex ways?

To understand that,

we need to look at the dogs
that use a lot of buttons.

Come. Outside.

Okay, we can go outside.

Come on, girl.

Of all the dogs taking part
in Federico's study,

most use just a handful
of buttons.

But there are at least 30 dogs

who routinely use
at least 50 different buttons.

The holy grail would be
to find dogs that are capable

of using a limited number
of words

to express new ideas

that they don't have
specific buttons for.

We humans have

a limited vocabulary.

But the reality is,
there's no constraint

on how many different things
we can express.

The only way that we can get
that unlimited ability

from a limited vocabulary

is by combining
those different terms,

those different words,
that vocabulary,

in different ways
to create new concepts.

This ability to say anything
with limited words

is known as productivity.

I can give you an example.

My two-year-old kept telling me

that he wanted to be dressed
as a green lion,

and I was, like,
"What are you talking about?

There is no green lion."

And at some point, he sees
somebody dressed as a dinosaur,

points to it,
and says, "Green lion."

And I'm, like, "There you go.

"You don't have a word
for dinosaur.

"But by saying 'green lion,'

"you're getting as close
as you can with your vocabulary

to telling me,
'This is what I want.'"

Linguistic productivity
is absolutely central

to the way
that humans do language.

So that cognitive ability
is very, very powerful

and very, very rare
in the animal world.

It would be a huge step up
in terms of cognitive ability.

So could some dogs
be showing signs of it?

In order to look
at productivity,

you need to have dogs that can
combine at least two buttons.

As of yesterday,
we have 790 dogs in our pool

that do multi-button
combinations.

It is possible
that out of this 700,

almost 800 individuals,

you can now look at some,

and maybe
there's gonna be one, two,

three, five, ten, 20
that actually have

the ability to kind of refer
to things

that you don't have a word for

or by combining other signals.

We have anecdotal reports
from some of them

that they seem to be doing it.

One time, when Stella's
"beach" button broke,

she went right over,

looked exactly
where her "beach" button was,

she kind of sniffed it,
looked at the empty space,

and then immediately after,

said, "Help," "Water,"
"Outside."

Help. Water.

Outside.

That was something
that had never been taught.

I had never referred
to the beach as "water outside."

But she put those together

in order to communicate
that concept to me

when her "beach" button
wasn't available anymore.

It's impossible to know

whether Christina's
interpretation is correct.

But clips like these
are helpful for Federico,

to highlight possible areas
for future research.

Water. Outside.

This is the reason
I am doing it,

even though people told me
I might lose my job.

It's because I've seen
things like that.

I've seen animals putting
together two or three buttons

in ways that look like they
were producing sentences.

But of course, you should not
stop there,

because that thing
could have been trained.

We'll go to the beach.

It might look like productivity,

but we don't know for sure
that it is.

I do find interesting

that she pressed buttons
that are near "beach."

Help. Water.

I would have loved

to know if she would have done
the same

if, say, "beach" was on the
other side of the soundboard.

Although Stella had never before
used those buttons together,

testing what she meant by them
after the event is impossible.

After that set of buttons
is hit,

if Stella then goes
to the beach,

now that set of buttons

definitely means "beach."

So then it's almost impossible
for us to know

what, the first button press
occurrence,

what Stella had intended,
because now

it always means "beach."

So, can dogs talk?

I think Parker can communicate
using

English-language words.

Do you want to do
training?

No.

Okay!

We won't do training, then.

If you want to call that
talking, great.

I say that Stella talks

because she's using words
to communicate.

Outside.

The fact that it's not
a trained behavior,

and that it's independent,

and that she can use words

to mean
a lot of different things

indicates language,
not just a conditioned trick.

It's not surprising that owners,

with their close relationships
and strong communicative bonds,

might feel their dogs
are talking.

Love you.

Stella.

Love you,
Stella.

But scientific understanding

of their linguistic capabilities

is still in its early days.

Bedtime.

We're very much at the beginning
of what we're doing

and we need to be ready

to collect data
for years and years.

Out, outside.

And to me, the exciting part is

that we now get a better sense

of what might be happening
out there.

Outside.

Maybe you can see something that
nobody else could see before,

because we just didn't
have access to all this data.

Chewy.

We're really at the start
of this journey

of understanding
animal cognition,

animal communication,
and where that lies

on that spectrum between
language and non-language.

Where. Bye.

Where...

Bye.

Where bye?

Are you asking where
you're going?

You're going to go see
Natalie!

It's clear that dogs
will never be capable

of using our language
to generate the rich,

grammatically correct,
infinite range of sentences

that humans can create.

Does it matter

if the sentence you're saying
is grammatical or not,

as long as you're getting
your point across,

and you're actually benefiting
from that two-way communication?

I don't think so.

Whether dogs are using language
or not,

with a new tool
in their communication kit

and access to our words,

perhaps the close bond
between humans and dogs

could become even closer.