Michelle Pierce has a TikTok account that features Lexi, her husky. The dog communicates with buttons that allow her to “speak,” as the buttons will play pre-recorded words or phrases; there are many such accounts on TikTok and other social networks with pets “communicating” via buttons and they are proving to be quite popular. FluentPet, a company that makes some of these buttons, started a study in June 2020 to see if the animals are indeed genuinely communicating with their owners or are simply pressing buttons arbitrarily. However, there is already skepticism as to the efficacy of the buttons, since the TikTok videos could be cherry-picked and may not show the activity of a particular pet before or after their button presses.

Key Takeaways:

• Michelle Pierce has a popular TikTok account in which her dog Lexi communicates via pressing buttons.
• Other animals have demonstrated some sort of ability to communicate by pressing buttons that essentially allow the animals to speak.
• Some people are skeptical as to whether or not the animals are truly communicating with their owners via the buttons.

“She bought FluentPet’s HexTiles, which you may have seen in viral videos of dogs pressing buttons that play recorded phrases and words they use to communicate.”

Read more: https://mashable.com/article/talking-dog-tiktok-hextiles-study