Most dogs make themselves understood with a bark, a nudge, or a long stare at the door. Bunny, a 7-year-old Sheepadoodle, has another option: a soundboard of about 110 buttons, each one a word.
Her owner, Alexis Devine, started reading about communication buttons before Bunny even came home, then modeled words during ordinary moments for years. She does not treat the board as a trick. It is a way to hand her dog more choice about food, walks, or being left alone. She walked iHeartDogs through what the practice has taught her.
The story that explains it best is a medical one. Bunny pressed “ouch,” “stranger,” and “paw.” That odd trio sent Alexis looking, and she found a foxtail buried in the webbing between Bunny’s toes. Bunny may well have licked or limped eventually, but the buttons flagged the problem earlier than body language did.
Bunny has also contributed data to the They Can Talk project at the University of California San Diego’s Comparative Cognition Lab, where researchers are still working out how much dogs understand and how much weight a button press deserves.
What this means for your dog: you do not need a soundboard to borrow the lesson. Watch the signals your dog already sends, and offer choices when you can, whether that is two directions on a walk or a treat offered low instead of snatched. Alexis says the years of close attention made her more patient, and she is clear that Bunny is still energetic and sometimes reactive. The buttons did not change that. They gave the two of them one more way to understand each other. Our guide to reading dog body language and the idea behind cooperative care are good places to start building your own.