Original subtitles

For as long as we've shared our lives with pets,

we've been seeking better ways to communicate with them.

Do you wanna play? Yeah, look at that little tail.

In Washington state, Alexis Devine and her sheepadoodle Bunny…

Come play with me.

…think they've found a way of making communication a reality.

I have had Bunny since she was eight weeks old,

so about almost two years.

I've wanted a dog for as long as I can remember.

And as you can probably guess, it's completely changed my life.

Like all first-time puppy owners,

Alexis wanted to build a deep bond.

Are you happier now?

But she went further than most, with a set of communication buttons…

What do you want? Hmm?

Each programmed with a pre-recorded word

to help humans and animals speak the same language.

Play. Love you.

Okay. I love you too.

I love you, Bunny.

I'm not a scientist, not a dog trainer, not a speech language pathologist.

It just felt like there was so much potential for me to grow

and learn things about myself through building this relationship.

Sharing their progress on social media,

Alexis kicked off her experiment with a single button,

giving ten-week-old Bunny a way of asking to leave the house.

I just started by pressing it every time we would go outside.

I would press the button "outside," say the word "outside,"

we would go outside.

And after about three weeks of doing that consistently, she was using the button.

Outside.

Do you need to go outside? Yes?

I squealed. I was like, "Oh, my God! Did you just say outside?"

Outside.

Wanna go outside now?

It was a light bulb moment for both of us.

Outside. Outside.

Outside later, Bunny.

Now. Hap… Happy. Happy. Happy.

In Washington state, chatty pooch Bunny is now two years old.

She has 90 buttons with which to express herself

and even seems to combine them into simple sentences.

Later. Outside.

Later outside? Yes.

Their online clips have captured the imagination

of over seven million internet followers…

- Friend. - Yeah, Bunny friend.

That's right.

…intrigued by what appears to be genuine cross-species communication.

Mom.

Yes, that's me. What can I do for you?

Some of the most popular videos were Bunny saying, "Mom, love you."

Love you.

Love you, too. Come here.

She uses it several times a week, and it's heart-melting every single time.

Love you, Mom.

Oh, I love you too, Bunny.

She'll press, "Love you, Mom" and then come right over to me

and place her chin in my hand.

Mom, love you.

Love you too!

Until now, we've believed dogs are only capable

of expressing basic needs.

But many clips appear to show Bunny exhibiting

far more sophisticated cognition.

All done.

Please.

She did say the other day, she said, um,

"You human, hi."

While I was on the couch working,

and she was at the board, she's looking at me,

looking down at the board, looking at me, "You human, hi." Like, "Huh? What?"

Yeah, it's mind-blowing.

Cat. Mom.

But the big question remains, has Bunny grasped

the true meaning of each button?

You hear a cat sound?

Or is she simply repeating the combinations

that elicit the best reactions from Alexis?

Yes, cat.

I've considered myself a hopeful skeptic since day one,

and the longer I do this, the less skeptical I am capable of being.

One clip that suggests Bunny may understand words

showed what appeared to be a startling self-diagnosis.

Help.

Ouch.

Help, ouch?

She went over to the board, she pressed, "Help, ouch."

Where "ouch?"

Paw.

In your paw?

Let me see your paw.

I felt between her toes, and lo and behold, there was a foxtail on there

that I was able to remove before it required medical intervention.

This was the stranger in her paw. She's got a mat between her, ow, toes.

Bye.

The extraordinary potential of a dog identifying pain

in a specific area of its body alerted the University of San Diego,

who now monitor Bunny around the clock

as part of an ongoing study.

Play.

Among others, they hope she can answer a question

that has long puzzled scientists,

do dogs have a sense of self?

Something usually attributed only to humans.

Who?

Who?

It started about six months ago, um,

when she would look in the mirror and press, "Who this?"

Who this?

She went nose-to-nose with herself in the mirror, pressed, "Dog, Bunny."

Look.

Bunny no.

Which is just incredible.

It doesn't prove anything, obviously, but it's fascinating, amazing…

Dog.

Dog why? And that. Um.

Aw.

Okay, let's go for a walk.

So far, Bunny's raised more questions than answers.

But in just two years, she and Alexis have become poster girls

for a new trend of pet communication.

Come, this way.

With luck, technology will someday allow dogs

to truly express themselves.

But one pet is already a high-flyer

when it comes to speaking our language.

Pretty bird.

The undisputed masters of verbal communication

are our pet parrots.

Bye, bye.

And if speaking our vernacular wasn't clever enough,

parrots have even learned to fool devices

designed to recognize human voices.

Alexa.

And although parrot owners usually don't know

what takes place while they're out,

new technology means now the evidence is there

for all to hear.

Alexa, read my shopping list.

You have 19 items on your shopping list.

Here are the five most recent.

Strawberries, strawberries, strawberries.

Strawberries, strawberries.

Would you like to hear the next five items?

Who ordered the strawberries, Beeps?

Thankfully, parrots' tastes don't extend to champagne

with their strawberries.

Peekaboo.

We're seeing how our pet parrots are master communicators.

Peekaboo.

But how did they acquire this incredible ability to speak?

Peekaboo.

In Venezuela, researchers believe

they've finally identified

the origins of this "copycat talent."

A study of green parrotlets flagged variations in the noises

used by the parents when calling to each of their different offspring.

It seems the parents allocate an individual sound to each chick.

And the chicks respond by repeating the same noise back at them.

It's like the parents have named their kids,

and their first spoken words are their own names.

As they mature, this copycat superpower

allows them to communicate with us in remarkable ways.

In Knoxville, Tennessee,

meet Einstein the African grey

and her pal Adam Patterson.

Let's go make some people's day today.

- Oh yeah. - Yeah?

Over a 15-year friendship…

Blow their minds that you can talk.

…their ability to communicate has developed into a unique partnership.

- Einstein, you ready? - You ready?

I'm ready. You guys seen the tigers today? Can you do a big cat?

Can you do a cat? Cat.

From mimicking her parents when she was a chick,

34-year-old Einstein has matured

into a lifelong vocal learner, copying noises just for fun.

Can you do a tiger?

Roar. There it is.

The way that African greys learn, and pretty much any animal,

but especially greys,

'cause we can see it a lot easier 'cause they're so smart,

is through associative learning.

Einstein will make a vocalization.

Can you say "hi?" Can you agree?

- Yes. - Yeah.

And if we like that sound, we'll start reinforcing it.

So, what's the reinforcer? Well, I think the biggest part of it is praise.

She grabs our attention, we'll turn around and say, "Good!"

Then we'll give her a little treat, sunflower seed, peanut, peas.

- Can you introduce yourself? - Einstein.

Very good.

And she goes, "Oh, well, that got me a lot of attention and food."

"Maybe I'll make that sound again." And so she'll keep making that sound,

we'll keep reinforcing it until she's doing it a lot.

What do you say to a good-looking man?

- Hey, baby. - "Hey, baby." Can you be more polite?

- Hey, sweetheart. - "Hey, sweetheart."

Everything is voluntary. She chooses to do it.

And sometimes, I think she does it because she likes the sound of her own voice.

Could she do, like, the Pokémon…

The Pokémon! Einstein, what do you think?

- No. - No?

Einstein's vocal dexterity has a lot to do with her muscular tongue.

In most birds, it's thin and stick-like,

but a parrot's is more like ours.

How about the pretty songbirds?

Yeah, tweet, tweet, tweet.

That's the sound you expect a parrot to make, right?

But unlike humans, Einstein doesn't have vocal cords

or a voice box.

Instead, she has a bundle of muscles in her throat called the syrinx.

And it's this that enables her to form words.

Einstein likes to dance too, but she doesn't like to dance alone.

You have to dance with her. Can you get it going? Bob the head up and down.

There she goes. Yeah. Can you get down, Einstein?

Ooh, ooh.

Einstein has a repertoire of 200 sounds, including words,

and knows at least 70 on cue.

- Einstein, what're you doing? - What're you doing?

But does this impressive feat of memory mean she understands

the language she's repeating?

- Hello, sweetheart. - You're special.

According to Adam, there are signs that she does.

She likes to give me a hard time 'cause people laugh.

So, I'll ask her for a vocalization, a sound,

and she'll give me the wrong one.

How about a dog? Can you bark?

And people laugh.

So she loves kind of just messing with me, getting that laugh from the public.

Can you do a red wolf?

Well, that was a kiss.

That wolf wants to give you a kiss. Let's try again. Let's howl like a wolf.

Can you do a wolf?

- There it is! Good job. - Wow.

Being able to communicate with an animal like Einstein

just really strengthens the bond that I can have with her.

She talks to me in… in her own way

sometimes vocally,

sometimes behaviorally, and… and I communicate back with her.

It's a very special… special bond.

Even pets that aren't able to mimic our language

find ways to make themselves understood.

But of all our furry friends, who's top dog

when it comes to communicating with humans?

Dogs have been our best friends for millennia.

And in that time, we humans have become experts

in reading their emotional state…

…purely from their barks.

So, in effect, we have made the effort to understand them.

But let's not underestimate our chatty cats.

After 8,000 years of living by our sides…

…they have learned a trick or two about communicating with us.

Meowing is something cats do with their mothers.

The only other creature they meow at is us,

because cats have learned how well it works

at getting us to do what they want.

They even change the sound of their meows.

Combining them with chirrups and purrs…

…to make the most irresistible combinations.

And now, a ground-breaking new study

has found they may even copy one aspect of human voices.

Our accents.

This cat…

- Aye. - You're a good boy, aye?

- Aye. - Aye.

…lives with his Northern Irish owner,

a country with a distinctive accent.

- Aye. - Aye.

And in America, this cat lives with their owner in the Southern States.

Well, hi!

- Yes, you did hear that right. - Well, hi!

- Okay. Okay. - Okay. Okay.

- Okay. Okay. - Okay. Okay.

While these two appear so in sync, it’s hard to know

who is mimicking who.

- Okay. Okay. - Okay. Okay.

So, some pets learn to copy us as they mature.

But how can we become better at interpreting the sounds made by them?

All pets are especially appealing when they are new-born bundles of fluff,

which helps trigger our impulse to care for them.

And the sounds they make are irresistible too.

Tiny and vulnerable in their first weeks of life,

most can’t see or hear,

leaving them dependent on Mom for food and protection around the clock.

But one pet doesn’t follow this rule…

…the guinea pig.

Little Melissa here was born one week ago,

fully furred with her hearing and vision working perfectly,

and for good reason.

This is where Melissa would have been born in the wild,

on the slopes of the high Andes in Peru.

A landscape with few places to hide

and plenty of large predators.

That’s why it’s crucial she was born ready to run.

Her ability to communicate comes in handy

when Melissa gets separated from Mom.

From the second she was born, Melissa has been repeating

the chutting noise made by her mother.

In the wild, it's the guinea pigs' way of staying close.

There's safety in numbers, and Mom can even recognize the sound

of her own babies by the sound of their chutting.

Guinea pigs go on to develop a huge range of different sounds

and respond when humans attempt to join in.

Here are some examples.

Wheeking indicates excitement or anticipation.

This is a sound guinea pigs often make around humans.

Rumbling usually made around courtship

or when trying to display dominance.

While if your guinea pig is chutting,

you know they’re feeling happy and safe,

and you're doing something right.

All pets gauge our mood from the way we behave,

but only one has turned reading our body language into an art form.

Dog owners will be familiar with the feeling

of being closely observed by their pooches.

They watch us so intently, it seems they become mind readers.

Take Gabriel here.

After a busy morning checking his emails, he decides to take Strike for a walk.

He hasn’t said a word or looked at Strike,

so how is it that Strike seems to have taken the lead?

Literally.

To find out, let's run that again.

As Gabriel finishes his email and decides it’s walkies time,

Strike is watching him closely enough to pick up on several minute cues.

Gabriel’s eyes flick to the clock,

something Strike has noticed in the run up to a walk before.

Gabriel checks his phone one last time,

another indication that he’s planning a move.

Even before he’s grabbed his keys,

Strike is already planning his exit.

So by the time Gabriel’s actually ready to deliver the good news,

Strike is already three steps ahead.

It's canine clairvoyance at its finest.

But dogs aren’t the only pets with an uncanny ability to understand us

and even sense our needs.

In Cornwall, NHS worker Emma is making the most of summer

on the southwest coast of England

with her four-legged friend Ted by her side.

Ted is just a big chunk that just loves affection.

Ted isn’t a dog…

but a three-year-old giant French Lop rabbit,

weighing in at almost seven kilos.

He's my best friend.

He goes everywhere with me.

He thinks he's a dog. Maybe he thinks that because that's the way I've treated him.

When we're out of the house we go anywhere that he can find snacks

and forage food.

He is food-motivated, as you can tell by his figure.

It’s not surprising that Ted’s at home in the fields,

but his favorite place is a little more unusual for a rabbit.

When we go to the beach, he just has the freedom.

He just roams free,

and just has literally the best life.

He's super relaxed.

A lot of rabbits are just bundles of nerves,

but he's not.

I think when you remove the cages, that's when their personalities show.

Keen to share Ted’s relaxing presence…

Teddy!

…Emma has enabled him to make a profound impact on others.

Ooh, what's Darcy got?

Darcy has sensory processing disorder…

…meaning she has trouble managing information

that comes in through the senses.

Oh, come back!

Which can lead to a heightened emotional overload.

Ribbit. Ribbit.

Tough for both her and for Mom, Nancy.

What's he doing?

He's checking you out.

Darcy is full of life, full of energy all day, very relentless.

She's full-on, and it's hard to ground her sometimes.

You can go around there, you might need to come this way.

Although dogs more commonly fulfill therapy roles,

Emma has seen incredible results with Ted.

I think you need the calmness, um, and

be able to approach an animal

that's not, like, unpredictable and a bit flighty.

What'd you reckon?

Ten minutes in Ted’s company seems to transform Darcy’s mood.

The more that she sees him…

Who's the silly now?

The more engagement and communication she seems

to do through Ted, which is the whole point of why we do it.

What's the best thing about Mr. Teddy?

- Ear. - His ears?

What is it about his ears that you like?

Is it 'cause they're small or big?

Small or big.

Which one?

- Um, big. - They're big ears.

And are they soft?

Yeah.

- Are they cold or are they hot? - Hot.

Ted helps Darcy to relax.

There you go, rabbit.

- He's a rabbit. - His name's Teddy.

Instead of her mind trying

to process everything that's going on around her,

I think it… it gives her a focus.

Here. No. You can't eat them.

They're for you now. They're for you. They're for you.

I can't get my head around it, but it's… it's incredibly powerful.

He definitely doesn't realize the good that he's doing.

Am I allowed to keep him at home?

Huh?

Yes, can I take him home with me?

You can't take Mr. Teddy home.

- Why? - 'Cause he lives here.

- I love… I love him. - You do love him. But I love him.

I personally think he was sent to me…

Do you like giving him cuddles?

Yep. He's very soft, Teddy.

…to do the work that we do.

Time spent with our pets can have a huge impact on our well-being,

but why do they have such a profound effect on us?

Just looking at the large eyes and round faces of our pets

reminds us of our own human babies.

Even causing the same release of the love chemical, oxytocin,

in both us and them.

Some of the most powerful communication between animals and their owners

occurs in working relationships.

At the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya,

Ranger Paul and Otis the bloodhound…

Otis, boy.

…have been partners for seven years.

Working as a ranger,

it's a combination of me and my dog

as one team, knowing each other.

Out. Out. Out. Jump. Jump. Jump. Jump.

I trust Otis and Otis trusts me.

Good boy!

I know nothing could happen to me because he will protect me.

That's the sound he wants to work.

Ol Pejeta provides sanctuary to hundreds of animals…

many on the brink of extinction.

One of the most endangered are the black rhino,

under huge threat from poachers who kill them illegally

and smuggle their horns to Asia.

We patrol with him along the fence to make sure there is no intruders

who have get inside the wire.

And these two are the most threatened of all.

Fatu and Najin are the last two northern white rhino on the planet.

Paul and Otis are key members of the team defending them from poachers.

We have to make sure

they are 247 protected.

They are helping us a lot, they are using their nose

to make sure these rhinos survive.

Their success doesn’t just depend on Otis’

incredible capacity to track a scent,

but his ability to communicate his findings to Paul.

Come on, good boy.

Today he’s flagging an unfamiliar smell.

The team saw footprints

of three people inside the park.

I will call for the backup team.

Backed by a heavily armed escort,

Otis leads the hunt.

To avoid detection, the team must operate quietly,

so Paul and Otis communicate with each other through his lead.

The dog will read your body language, and it's the same to you,

you will read the dog, his body language.

I, as an handler, I can read the dog and understand what he is saying.

As long as he is pulling you and you feel that the dog is still pulling you,

you'll know the dog is having the scent.

You have to be very, very careful because these people are armed.

With Rhino horn valued at around $30,000 a pound,

the same as gold,

poachers will stop at nothing to secure their prize.

Because we are the obstacles of them

to achieve what they want,

they have shoot us many times,

so you have to be afraid because you never know what will happen next.

Thankfully, the scent has gone cold.

If there were intruders,

they’ve left empty-handed.

It’s another successful mission for Paul, Otis, and the ranger team.

Bad luck to the poachers, good luck for us we had Otis.

He have never let us down.

Good boy.

Thanks to their relationship, there hasn’t been a rhino

poached here in years.

The last time we lost a rhino, 2016.

Since that time we didn't lost any rhino.

Our instinctive urge to communicate with our pets

means we’re always looking for ways to let them know how we feel.

Teddy.

And thanks to some clever new technology,

they’re starting to answer us back.

Mom.

- Love you. - Love you too!

But nothing beats spending quality time together

to understand exactly what your pet is trying to tell you.

Next time,

we uncover our pets' incredible super senses.

How Kenny the Cat is leading the way.

Those instincts really come into play.

Yeah, go, go, go, go.

He's got a really good sense of direction.

A devoted dog's life-saving hidden sense.

He's not just my pet, Barna is like a guardian angel.

And some goal scoring goldfish reveal their secret for success.