New article on how dogs are using their soundboards at home is finally out! Using a large dataset (250K) of button presses by family dogs and their owners, we show that dogs’ presses are (i) non-accidental, (ii) non-random, and (iii) not mere repetitions of their owners’ presses.

A couple of years ago BBC came to Laikipia, Kenya to film the olive baboon troop that Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project has been studying for 50 years. You can now see the beauty of our field site in Episode 10 of the series The Secret Lives of Animals that just dropped on Apple TV. Highly recommended

There’s a long, grubby history of animals being trained to “speak” in ways that humans have claimed to understand. But, as Imogen West-Knights discovers, a new cohort of scientists is trying to decode how they communicate in their own environments econ.st/4fHnPqk 👇

After getting my dog I became fascinated by all the contradictory ways humans treat pets — for example, people who teach their dogs to use buttons to talk. I decided to see what was behind this phenomenon, culturally and scientifically, for NYT Magazine. nytimes.com/2025/01/06/mag…

Thank you so much Sacha Vignieri and Science Magazine for the shout out! science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

On “Babbage” this week, the first episode in a two-part series that explores animal communication and efforts to translate it in the age of AI econ.st/3EBFfrq 🎧

‼️The CCL at UCSD is hosting the first-ever Detection Dog Trials in collaboration with MAN-K9! Join us March 8-9th to compete for trophies & prizes, contribute to scientific research, and showcase your dog’s scent detection skills! Learn more & register: detectiondogtrialsucsd.com

A few days ago I was asked by Kenneth Cukier "whether language is a cognitive ability that’s unique to humans, or just one of many modes of communication dotted across the tree of life". You can hear the conversation that followed here. Stay tuned for the second episode.

Thank you for the opportunity! And if people are interested in signing up for the study they can look for more info and sign up here: cclab.ucsd.edu/pet-cognition-…

“The basic reasons why most people use language are the same reasons why most animals communicate.” Federico Rossano explains the blurry line between human language and animal communication on “Babbage” econ.st/4hw5Jt1 🎧

The scent detection dog trials will take place on March 8th-9th in La Jolla (CA) at UC San Diego. Professionals and civilians will be competing on different days, judged by professional judges and receiving prizes. This is going to be a one of a kind event!

Comparative Cognition Lab @ UC San Diego is delighted to move into the amazing realm of working dogs and highly trained family dogs. This event will help us develop new tools to better assess and improve dog-handler communication and bond. Sign up here: detectiondogtrialsucsd.com and please RT UC San Diego Alumni

Less than a week away from our first ever Detection Dog Trials event with MAN-K9! We hope to see you there! 🐕🐾

Thank you Meredith Turner for creating this informative and even handed representation of the challenges and opinions around pets pushing buttons to communicate with humans. See below a few papers we published. We have 3 more on the way (one about cats) youtu.be/cTnVSJ8V4wk?si…

Today (April 30th) is 🔱 #TritonGivingDay Please donate to support the students in the Comparative Cognition Lab studying 10,000 pets from 47 countries in the largest Animal Communication study ever attempted! We need your help! This is Parker tinyurl.com/2s3ksem2 UC San Diego Alumni

Thank you so much for the invitation! Very much looking forward to giving the talk and engaging with your community!

I had the most wonderful time presenting Comparative Cognition Lab @ UC San Diego current progress on this project to the amazing Interspecies Internet community! If you could not attend but are interested in finding out more about our work, check out the lecture here: youtube.com/watch?v=RpjFuP…

On September 28th at 18:30 the French language premiere of the documentary "Can dogs talk?" will air on CBC/Radio-Canada Découverte Comparative Cognition Lab @ UC San Diego work on soundboard trained dogs is a central piece of this documentary. English versions will air on PBS NOVA and CBC in early 2026

If you want to know more about the research, you can check out this online lecture: youtube.com/watch?v=RpjFuP…

And if you want to join our citizen science study, you can sign up here: cclab.ucsd.edu/pet-cognition-… UC San Diego