“Usually we decide everything for the dogs.
Now with the system of buttons and communication, there are no more excuses for ignoring them”, laughs Meiyun Xu, doctoral student in Language Sciences at the University of Burgundy.
In her apartment in Dijon (Côte-d'Or), she installed a small rug and around thirty colored buzzers to chat with Coco, a 9-month-old Border Collie cross Bouvier and Malinois.
Since he was three and a half months old, his mistress has been training him to press these buttons to chat with her.
The big black dog spontaneously presses "kibbles", "out", "caresses" to signify his desires of the moment.
The device also has some subtleties of temporality: "Finished", "now", "later".
Useful nuances when you have to calm your pet's sudden impulses to walk.
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Meiyun Xu did not invent this system, which was first developed by Christina Hunger, an American speech therapist.
With her dog Stella, she decided to adapt these little rugs, usually reserved for children with language delays, for our four-legged friends.
“She wondered why not with her dog, and it works very well”, confirms Meiyun.
The Dijonnaise has decided to share the moments of exchange with Coco on a dedicated TikTok account, followed by 37,000 people.
While she unrolls the few videos published on her page, he bustles on the mat and presses “Pingu”.
This is the name of one of his toys, with which he would like to have fun.
“It's an intercom system.
Either it's him who starts, or it's me who starts, slips this researcher, dogs are much smarter than we imagine.
They have great potential to understand and learn our language.
I am impressed every day”.