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Bunny, Tacoma’s ‘talking’ dog, captures attention of millions on the internet

October 22, 2020 11:00 AM,

In many ways, Bunny the 15-month-old Sheepadoodle is like any other dog.

She loves running on the beach in Tacoma with the neighborhood dogs, performing tricks for treats and playing tug-of-war with her owner, 40-year-old Alexis Devine.

One thing sets Bunny apart from the rest — her ability to “talk.”

On the floor of their home on Salmon Beach is a mat with 70 recordable buttons, each one representing a word or phrase. Bunny uses the buttons to communicate her wants and needs, feelings or places she wants to go, Devine said. Her favorite words are “beach” and “park.”

“She can say, ‘Bunny want go park,’ or ‘park now,’” Devine said. “Or I can ask her when she went to the park, and she can say ‘morning.’”

When Devine started posting videos of Bunny on social media, the world took notice. Devine’s TikTok account, “I am Bunny,” has amassed more than 4 million followers.

In one of the most popular videos posted in June, which has been watched more than 42 million times, Bunny asks Devine to go to the park by pressing her “park” button.

“All done walking for today, Buns,” Devine says in the video. “Park later. All done walk.”

Bunny hits her “home” button, then “love you, mom.”

“She does that quite a bit,” Devine said. “It’s just so sweet. Melts my heart every time.”

When Devine posted the video, the views flooded in.

“It seemed remarkable to me, like the video itself,” Devine said. “So it didn’t really surprise me. But I didn’t know how Tik Tok worked. So it was sort of a shock to watch how things moved around the world after that.”

How it started

Before adopting Bunny, Devine, an artist from Tacoma, stumbled upon Hunger For Words, led by Christina Hunger, a speech-language pathologist from San Diego who is teaching Stella, her 2-year-old Catahoula/Blue Heeler mix, to talk.

“I thought, what a dream, you know, for our animals to tell us that they love us, to express their needs and wants, to tell us when they’re in pain,” Devine said. “So I got a couple of the buttons, just devoured Christina’s blog and thought I’d give it a shot.”

Devine adopted Bunny from a breeder in Spokane. When they first met, Bunny snuggled into the crook of her elbow for two hours.

“It was sort of love at first sight,” she said.

Devine started her training with Bunny with one button — “outside.”

“We placed it by the door, and anytime we would be going outside, I would press the outside button, and then go outside,” Devine said.

Devine noticed the buttons clicked with Bunny and added more over time.

“My theory is that she memorizes their place like a keyboard,” Devine said. “Like, you know, pianists can play amazing music without having to look at keys — similar to that. It’s like muscle memory.”

Studying Bunny

Bunny is part of a research study at the comparative cognition lab at the University of California, San Diego, headed by professor Federico Rossano. The study is also led by Leo Trottier, a cognitive scientist and founder of CleverPet, a hardware and software company that develops games for pets.

The study looks at how dogs are learning language and whether the breed, age, sex or human involvement contributes to that learning.

“It’s actually an open study. So anyone who’s trying to teach their animal to communicate can join and contribute data,” Devine said.

After hearing about about Hunger’s work, Trottier reached out to a number of people in March who were teaching their dogs, he told The News Tribune on Thursday.

“We’re trying to see whether this is a real thing or not,” he said.

He said Devine and Bunny stood out, and the two of them have collaborated to develop prototypes that Devine was one of the first beta testers to use. The system she currently uses with Bunny is called FluentPet, developed by CleverPet. FluentPet launched in June, and so far has sold more than 50,000 individual buttons, Trottier said.

The FluentPet system organizes buttons using the Fitzgerald Key, developed by Edith Fitzgerald in the early 1900s to help teach children with hearing disabilities through sentence structure order. In Bunny’s case, her buttons are organized depending on the type word — for example, all place words are grouped together on the mat (beach, park, home, couch).

“A lot of people have been comparing her language development to that of a toddler,” Devine said.

Trottier said that they will be reaching out to scholarly publications with what they learn.

Growing fame

Despite living on Salmon Beach — a gated community along the water in Tacoma only accessible by foot — Devine and Bunny get recognized almost every time they go out.

“She’s a lot more social than I am,” Devine said of Bunny.

Being internet famous does have its downsides, Devine said. She says she welcomes skepticism, but some take it farther than that.

“There are a lot of people that are quite skeptical. And also really mean about it — just sort of coming onto my page to say that I’m a fraud or to say nasty things about Bunny or to try and discredit me,” Devine said. “From the very beginning I’ve said, ‘I’m not an expert, I’m not a scientist. I’m creative.’ I have a really strong bond with Bunny, and that’s been my primary goal from the beginning.”

While those comments can be discouraging, Devine said, she also gets many positive messages.

“I get so many wonderful messages, just saying how inspired people have been to take their communication with their animals to the next level,” Devine said. “Even without the buttons, they’re just spending more time listening to their pets, trying to understand what they want, trying to deepen their bond with them. And I think that’s really beautiful.”