Ok so who is Bunny the talking TikTok dog and can she actually talk?

Right now, there’s a dog which is taking over TikTok. Meet Bunny, the adorable dog who in her viral TikTok videos appears to be…talking.

Yes, really. Bunny uses a series of buttons and apparently can actually understand what her owner is saying and responds to this. She’s taken TikTok by storm and rightly so, nobody can quite get over it. Bunny’s videos have had hundreds of millions of views and over 82million likes.

Here’s everything you need to know about Bunny the talking dog on TikTok, and you know, if she actually is legitimately communicating with her owner.

Who is Bunny the viral talking TikTok dog?

Bunny is a Sheepadoodle from Washington. Over the past year, her owner Alexis Devine has been teaching her to (kind of) talk. Bunny has a mat covered in buttons which are each a different verbal cue. When Alexis speaks to Bunny or says something, Bunny can click on the button which correlates to the response she wants to give. Think a lot of “walkies?” followed by “yes” – but like 10 times more mind blowing. So mind blowing, that Bunny now has five million followers on TikTok. 

Bunny has nearly 100 buttons now which are organised into phrases. Bunny can requests things like “outside” and “water” and say “yes” or “no”. Her first word (cute) was “outside”, when Alexis placed the button which said that near the door where she is let out.

Alexis originally got the idea to teach Bunny to talk from a speech-language pathologist named Christina Hunger who had taught her own dog to speak in five word sentences.

Bunny is such a big deal these days, she’s part of a research study at the Comparative Cognition Lab at the University of California, which aims to understand how dogs understand language. She can indicate when she’s in pain, can apparently understand the concept of time and referencing events that have already happened and can fully engage in a conversation!!! It really is magical.

Now down to the serious business, can Bunny the dog actually talk?

So, we all want to know if Bunny the TikTok talking dog is the real deal. Maybe the videos are edited well so it looks like she responds coherently? Maybe it’s just really good timing and training? Or maybe, just maybe, Bunny knows exactly what she is saying and can actually communicate.

Bunny’s owner, Alexis, told The News Tribune: “My theory is that she memorises their place like a keyboard. Like, you know, pianists can play amazing music without having to look at keys – similar to that. It’s like muscle memory.”

According to Christine Hunger, the speech expert who inspired Alexis to teach Bunny, you really can do it. Her top tips for getting started are: speaking to your dog lots, observing your own words, and using your dog’s buttons yourself to teach them how to. Alexis added in an interview with Mashable:  “Through a series on thousands of tiny reinforcements, she learns the meaning of each button.”

However there are sceptics, and Bunny’s talking has been “debunked”. The Rewired Soul reports that anamorphism is the reason why people like Alexis can easily make us believe that Bunny can talk with these buttons, and Alexis probably believes it as well. Anamorphism is a type of distorted projection or perspective. The report says: “Alexis may not realise that she’s giving Bunny cues that give the appearance that Bunny can talk.

“We’d need to see if Bunny would answer when someone else asks the questions, and we’d also need to see if Bunny could answer without seeing the person. Bunny might be extremely smart, but she’s most likely reading other cues.

“Another theory I have is that Bunny notices the happy tone in Alexis’ voice when she presses buttons that are coherent. This type of conditioning can train Bunny to press certain sequences.”

The article also states that to prove Bunny really knows what she is saying, someone would need to monitor her behaviours after pressing the buttons. For example, when Bunny presses “water” does she actually want a drink and drink it? When she presses “outside” does she actually go outside and do her business?

No matter what you think, Bunny’s rise to fame has now become subject to loads of memes

In more recent videos, Bunny has began asking “why” in response to Alexis. “No walkies right now”, “why?” is a common occurrence. This has caused people to share “Bunny’s existential crisis” memes.

I don’t know about you, but I believe.

For more of the best TikTok videos, trends and memes – follow The Holy Church of TikTok on Facebook. 

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