I noticed a news story on the CNN web site recently about a company in Japan that is marketing a device that can translate the barks, growls, and yips of dogs into human words. This thing is marketed by a company called Takara Co. Ltd., and is called, I’m afraid, Bowlingual.
“We know that the Americans love their dogs so much, so we don’t think they will mind spending $120 on this product,” Masahiko Kajita, a marketing manager for the company, said in the article. The company claims to have sold 300,000 doggie translators in Japan, and figures when it has its English version ready to go this year the owners of the 67 million dogs in the U.S. are going to be dying to translate the innermost thoughts of their poodles, basset hounds, or collies.
The Bowlingual operates via a three-inch long wireless microphone attached to the dog’s collar, which transmits the dog’s various orations to a console linked to a database. (I’m paraphrasing the news article here). The dog’s sounds are classified into six categories: happiness, sadness, frustration, anger, assertion, and desire. The translator then puts the emotional state of the dog into words, along the lines of, I guess, “I’m happy,” or “I’m sad” or “I want a walk.”
Let me repeat: 120 bucks for this thing.
Our house operates on the tri-dog plan: beagle Tyler and terrier mutts Stella and Sugar. If you don’t count the trouble, dirt, fur, noise, and expense, having three dogs works out very well. They keep each other company and kind of have their own pack, in which they allow Sharon and me honorary membership.
So, I have canine street cred. Or maybe it would be kennel cred. Anyway, I know dogs.
And one thing about dogs is that dogs are not delegates to the U.N. Dogs don’t need translators, because you never have to guess what a dog is thinking. If a dog is sad it looks sad. If a dog is happy, it wags its tail. If a dog is outside and wants in the house, it barks. If a dog is in the house and wants outside, it barks. If a dog is hungry, it barks. If a dog hears a knock at the door, it barks like crazy. Even when a dog thinks its up to something sneaky, it goes about being sneaky in such a guilty-looking obvious way that it’s only comical.
All in all, dogs are way easier to understand than people. You never walk away from an encounter with a dog saying to yourself, “I wonder what that dog meant by that?”
On the other hand, a translator that went the other way—humans to dogs—would be great. You could turn on your reverse Bowlingual and say into it some typical dog-owner statement such as: “I swear, if you dogs get into the garbage one more time I’m going to haul you all to the country and turn you loose!” it could translate that deep and profound thought that you would like to share with your canine companions. After which they would share a good laugh and wait until your back was turned to chew up your shoes.
Kajita, the marketing guy for Bowlingual, clearly knows the mind of the American consumer, and is therefore unfazed by the fact that his product is utterly useless. He says the company goal is to sell a million of these things in the first eight months on the market.
He adds that the company has no current plans to offer a similar device for the translation of cat noises. This is because all cat noises mean the same thing: “You are a moron.”