Words are a human construct - language. Dogs don't naturally have words or language - there's no bark that conveys a static meaning. They do correlate noises, like whines, barks, growls, with things they have experience with, and are clever enough to string complex and abstract concepts together. That level of reasoning and communication is not language, however.

What the buttons demonstrate is that dogs are capable of learning and using language. Complex concepts, like fire being hot and dangerous, yet needed to keep the house warm, so start the fire before the walk (a recent Bunny episode.)

This goes beyond Cesar Milan being the dog whisperer and into something novel. For the first time, we have dogs and other animals demonstrating that they can learn words and rules of grammar, connecting sequences of words together to form a specific meaning. That means a dog can say "go walk later" "ouch paw" and so forth, and bring about some sort of reaction from their human that would have been impossible without buttons. In the study they've been doing, dogs have demonstrated the capacity for humor, combining the semantics of different words to create new words, assigning nicknames, and stringing together upwards of 5 words to express a coherent idea.

This should cause us all to stop and question whether our perception of animals needs changing. To all appearances, any mammal, or animal with functionality comparable to a neocortex, is capable of using language. Cows, pigs, horses, dogs, cats, rabbits, and all sorts of other animals have learned to use these button systems. Birds and primates have long been known to use sign language, able to understand spoken words and respond with fairly intelligent and complex language of their own. Bears, lions, dolphins, orcas, and whales are likely to be among the most intelligent and linguistically facile creatures aside from humans.

Perhaps the neural structure imposed by learning language results in a significant shift in capacity. When you consider feral humans, and the extreme difficulties they have with language acquisition, and then think on Helen Keller's description of language and communication resulting in her becoming conscious and aware, maybe teaching language to these animals is inducing a real change in consciousness, providing them the foundations of a life and experience with which we can directly empathize.

Courts recently ruled against elephants being people - well, we should take a hard look at what "people" really means. Mysticism and religious traditions aren't sufficient in a world inhabited by science. Humans aren't people "because God said so" or "the holy book says all other animals are lesser."

We are where we are because our brains, mouths, hands, and eyes give us an advantage in controlling our environments. Left feral, we're often no more capable or extraordinary than other primates. Given culture, education, and language, and humanity becomes some significantly more powerful and impactful in the world. Giving dogs language probably isn't going to result in dogs writing blogs, or horses filing legal briefs, but humans could establish a culture that lifts them up, empowers them, and provides a set of tools by which dogs (and other animals) are able to express more agency and have a much more potent impact on the world.

For example, imagine a standardized education for dogs, in which a set of 100 words are taught to them as puppies, consistently modeled. This would mean that almost any dog you encounter would have a shared means of communication - for dogcatchers, that'd be a pretty good deal. It'd also mean "yes, good friend. come treat." or similar phrases might be used to put a dog at ease. Most dog attacks happen because you have a terrified animal in an unpredictable situation, and all the dog knows is how to react with fear and aggression. Layering communication into that definitely wouldn't solve everything, but hey, it'd be a lot better than nothing.

I can't wait for Cesar or a comparably talented trainer to grab on to the dog button trend; there's a subtle but deep difference between being greeted by a flurry of wiggles and joyful bouncing, and all the wiggles and bouncing with "Dad hi love you play" or "Mom friend human".