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Talking Dog Vest Could Enable ‘Lassie’ To Do More Than Just Bark As National Dog Day Hits

By David Cornell
Published on: 07:01 PST, Aug 26, 2016

Do you want a talking dog? There could be several benefits to it, such as your four-legged buddy telling you when he or she needs to go out to relieve itself.

Thanks to a vest developed by Melody Jackson of the Georgia Institute of Technology, it may just be possible. Of course, your buddy will probably never be let into the bedroom again. Actually it might not be that bad, but you’ll be able to communicate better with man’s best friend.

Cat owners might not be so lucky, as the fur babies tend to do what they want and only ask for attention and food.

The vest slips over the dog’s head and contains sensors which, when activated, send a message which you can either hear or receive as a message on your smartphone. Melody has actually spent 20 years working with dogs, especially in the law enforcement field, and has a PhD in computer science. The two came together in a wearable device which could make the talking dog a reality and help make search and rescue situations more efficient with dogs.

Working with fellow researchers Thad Starner and Clint Zeagler, Melody has created a vest affectionately called FIDO, which stands for Facilitating Interactions for Dogs with Occupations. The vest was tested on Melody’s own border collie Sky, who she claims learned how to use it quickly.

“He actually has helped us design a lot of these sensors, by telling us what works and what doesn’t work. So, he’s sort of our first line of testing before we go out to the rest of the world. He’s a very critical part of our design team.”

While this would be handy in letting “Lassie” tell us exactly how “Timmy fell down the well,” the talking dog vest was developed more as a way to help bomb-sniffing dogs narrow down their discovery.

“A bomb-sniffing dog has pretty much one alert that says, ‘Hey, I found an explosive.’ But that dog knows what explosive is in there…. They know if it’s something stable like C4 or something unstable and dangerous like TATP that needs to be handled carefully. [The problem is] they have no way to tell their handler.”

The talking dog vest will also be handy for finding survivors in a disaster, according to CNN. The dog will be able to simultaneously tell the survivor that help is on the way, and tell emergency crews that he or she has found someone. The tracker to help find the dog in that situation is still being developed.

Melody Jackson hasn’t ruled out civilian applications for the wearable device, saying that the dog could be so much more than a basic assistance and comfort dog for people with disabilities.

“What if that dog could reach around and pull a tab on its vest and call 911 with your GPS location, and text your husband: ‘By the way she’s at Starbucks on Fifth and Spring, and she’s having a seizure right now.’ Your husband would know immediately that 911 is on the way.”

The talking dog vest could also potentially help someone with hearing loss by sending messages about sounds they may have missed, like a doorbell ringing, or a crying baby.

Jackson adds that almost any dog which can be trained can learn to use the vest in less than a minute. The talking dog vest could easily turn man’s best friend into a hero.

[Image via 135pixels/Shutterstock.com]

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