Almost every dog lover has at some point dreamed of being able understand exactly what canines are saying with their barks and growls. Doing its dog-ged best to fulfill that fantasy—or at least profit off it—is the manufacturer of the BowLingual Voice, an electronic dog-to-human language translator.

The BowLingual Voice was unleashed by Takara Tomy, a Japanese company (because, really, no marketing department of native English speakers would assign a product such as this a name that starts with “bowel”). The company claims that their BowLingual can translate a hundred (aka a hound-dred?) different barks.

To understand the reality of the BowLingual it helps to know that Takara Tomy is a toy manufacturer, not a pet-related company.

The BowLingual consists of a dog collar and a handheld controller/speaker. What this gadget does is assign each of your dog’s noises one of six moods: happy, sad, content, needy, frustrated or anxious. The BowLingual then comes up with a phrase that matches that mood. It is here that the accuracy of the translation seems to go off the rails. Because, according to the BowLingual, everything your dog says is some odd, cutesy Japanese~esque phrase such as:

Try saying my name.

– or –

You make me smile.

– or –

I’ve got a funny feeling.

(Full article here)

—

Thoughts: When I saw this I was like wait whaaaat, there’s such a thing?! But too bad it is preset phrases not an exact translation of what the dog is saying. If only such a thing really exist like those in the movie UP!