Bark Buttons: “Who Let the Dogs Talk?”

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Gist – "Bark Buttons: Who Let the Dogs Talk?"

Episode Information

• Title: Bark Buttons: “Who Let the Dogs Talk?”
• Host: Mike Pesca, Peach Fish Productions
• Release Date: May 29, 2025
• Description: For thirty minutes each day, Pesca challenges himself and his audience in a responsibly provocative style, moving beyond rigidity and dogma. The Gist offers surprising, reasonable insights while critiquing the left, the right, either party, or any prevailing idea.

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1. Trump’s Tariffs and International Trade

Timestamp: 01:01 – 02:32

Mike Pesca opens the episode by delving into recent developments in international trade, specifically focusing on President Donald Trump’s tariffs. He discusses a pivotal court ruling where the Court of International Trade blocked most of Trump's tariffs, emphasizing that the U.S. Constitution grants exclusive authority to regulate commerce with other nations.

• Mike Pesca (01:20): “The Court found the US Constitution gives exclusive authority to regulate commerce with other countries, not the President’s emergency powers.”

Pesca explains that while the tariffs aren't entirely removed, the administration faces a temporary pause, leaving the public and Wall Street questioning the future of these trade policies.

• Mike Pesca (02:00): “Are the tariffs still on? Really? The nations of the world can read the news, listen to the gist. They can also read the tea leaves.”

He humorously references Trump's contentious interactions with the press, highlighting the unpredictable nature of his administration's policies.

---

2. "Is That Bullshit?" Featuring Sadie Dingfelder – The Debate Over Dog Buttons

Timestamp: 08:12 – 28:43

In this thought-provoking segment titled "Is That Bullshit?", Mike Pesca welcomes Sadie Dingfelder, author of Do I Know You? A Face Blind Reporter’s Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory and Imagination. They explore the controversial topic of dog buttons—devices that purportedly allow dogs to communicate their thoughts by pressing buttons with specific phrases.

Understanding Dog Buttons

• Mike Pesca (08:34): “Can dogs talk with buttons? That's what the whole NIH is now focused on.”

Sadie explains that these buttons are commercially available and come with preset labels like "walk" or "outside," but owners can customize them to suit their dog's needs.

• Sadie Dingfelder (09:04): “The starter pack is three, but you can start adding and adding. Bunny has like maybe 100 words in her vocabulary.”

They examine videos demonstrating dogs using these buttons, questioning whether the dogs are genuinely communicating or simply responding to training and owner cues.

Scientific Examination and Skepticism

Pesca and Dingfelder discuss studies aimed at determining the validity of dog communication through buttons. They reference the historical example of Clever Hans, a horse believed to perform arithmetic but ultimately shown to respond to human body language cues.

• Sadie Dingfelder (13:11): “Clever Hans was cued into his owner. The horse wasn’t actually solving math problems.”

Their conversation highlights current research led by Federico Rossano at the University of Ralston Purina, which attempts to rule out human cueing by using blind scientists and noise-canceling headphones during experiments.

• Mike Pesca (16:58): “But I don't think it moves us forward in terms of dog-human communication.”

Critical Insights

Dingfelder critiques the methodology, pointing out that much of the data relies on owner-reported button presses via a custom app, which lacks objective verification.

• Sadie Dingfelder (17:52): “Everyone has their own buttons set up. Like, who knows?”

Pesca remains skeptical, arguing that the communication facilitated by buttons doesn't significantly enhance the traditional ways dogs and humans understand each other.

• Mike Pesca (22:47): “This is all gonna come crumbling down. It was all a giant scam.”

Despite the skepticism, they acknowledge that some dogs, like Bunny, demonstrate unique interactions, but question the broader implications and the actual advancement in dog-human communication.

Conclusion of the Segment

The discussion concludes with Pesca and Dingfelder weighing the benefits against the potential drawbacks of dog buttons, pondering whether enhancing dog communication could inadvertently affect their well-being.

• Mike Pesca (25:15): “We don't want dogs to be, you know, smarter or more communicative. Do we?”

---

3. Defunding the Police – Media Narratives vs. Reality

Timestamp: 28:43 – 30:43

In the latter part of the episode, Pesca shifts focus to the contentious issue of defunding the police, critically analyzing a Guardian article that portrays cities like Seattle and Austin as triumphs of the "defund the police" movement.

Critical Analysis of Media Reporting

Pesca critiques the Guardian's narrative, arguing that while the article highlights the redirection of funds from policing to areas like housing and mental health care, it omits discussing the consequential rise in homicide rates.

• Mike Pesca (29:12): “Why write a story about success and not mention all the murders? Who is the article for?”

He reveals that, contrary to the article's positive portrayal, cities that implemented significant budget cuts saw substantial increases in homicides.

• Mike Pesca (29:30): “In Milwaukee, the years the city funded the cops less were the exact years the murders rose the most.”

Impact on Public Trust and Policy

Pesca emphasizes the importance of balanced reporting, arguing that omitting critical data like rising crime rates undermines public trust and misleads readers about the efficacy of defunding initiatives.

• Mike Pesca (30:00): “This is just not useful to him [the mayor]. It's a distraction for people who might wave it in his face.”

He concludes that such narratives do more harm than good by portraying failed policies as successes, thereby eroding civic trust and complicating governance.

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Closing Remarks

Mike Pesca wraps up the episode by reflecting on the necessity of honest journalism and the importance of evaluating policies based on comprehensive data rather than aspirational narratives.

• Mike Pesca (30:43): “When trust is violated, it has real costs. Pretending that failed dangerous programs work is an idealism. It is betrayal.”

Production Credits

• Produced by: Cory Wara
• CCBASO: Ashley Khan
• Main CBSO: Michelle Pesca
• Social: Astrid Green
• Internet: Leo Baums

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Key Takeaways:

• International Trade: The legal challenges to Trump’s tariffs highlight the limits of executive power in regulating commerce.
• Dog Communication: Current research on dog buttons remains inconclusive, with skepticism about their efficacy in enhancing dog-human communication.
• Police Defunding: Media narratives often oversimplify complex policy outcomes, neglecting critical data such as rising crime rates to promote a specific agenda.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Mike Pesca (01:20): “The US Constitution gives exclusive authority to regulate commerce with other countries, not the President’s emergency powers.”
• Sadie Dingfelder (09:04): “The starter pack is three, but you can start adding and adding.”
• Mike Pesca (22:47): “This is all gonna come crumbling down. It was all a giant scam.”
• Mike Pesca (29:12): “Why write a story about success and not mention all the murders? Who is the article for?”
• Mike Pesca (30:43): “When trust is violated, it has real costs. Pretending that failed dangerous programs work is an idealism. It is betrayal.”

---

This episode of The Gist provides a multifaceted exploration of contemporary issues, blending political critique with intriguing debates on animal communication. Mike Pesca's insightful analysis encourages listeners to question prevailing narratives and seek deeper understanding of complex topics.

Transcript

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[Mike Pesca]

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[Eddie Dingfelder]

3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full [e-mail] this weekend I'll be.

[Mike Pesca]

In Seattle and if you will too, I invite you to the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival. More info and tickets at cascade pbs.org/festival I'll be interviewing Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson for their book Original Sin. The festival doors open at 10. This event with the gist is Saturday at 2:45. Other speakers in the festival overall Al Franken, Jeff Flake, Rick Steves, Amanda Knox and other podcasts beside the gist. Criminal Radio Lab, the Journal, I told you lots of ideas. And again, Cascade PBS.org Festival it's Thursday, May 29, 2025. From Peach Fish Productions, it's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. The Court of International Trade blocked almost all of President Donald Trump's tariffs in a ruling on Wednesday, found the US Constitution gives exclusive authority to regulate commerce with other countries. Notwithstanding President Trump's insistence that he had emergency powers. Now, it doesn't mean the tariffs are off. The administration got a temporary pause. But are the tariffs still on? Really? The nations of the world can read the news, listen to the gist. They can also read the tea leaves. So can Wall Street. They perform the taco trade. Taco standing for Trump always chickens out when asked in a press availability about tacos. Trump almost bit the reporter's head off.

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[Mike Pesca]

Cold turkey on the nice China Another Trump initiative was also stopped by a federal judge today. The Trump administration's attempt to bar international students from enrolling at Harvard. Well, the attempted blockage was stopped. In other words, international students can still enroll at Harvard. However, there's a another plan happening. Simultaneously, Marco Rubio plans to revoke visas specifically from Chinese students on US College campuses who are studying in sensitive areas. There are 300, almost 300,000 Chinese nationals studying right now on U.S. college campuses. The U.S. has 10,000 studying in China. Tariffs or not, that particular balance of trade seems to clearly favor the Chinese and also the universities who could charge the Chinese their ridiculous sticker prices, thus educating the smartest sons and daughters of our economic rivals to see them returning to the homeland and using their knowledge in ways not always in furtherance of bettering the world as a whole, or at least the United States slice of it. On the show today, those defund success stories couldn't get this one guardian piece out of my craw. Luckily I share it with you. But first, Eddie Dingfelder is here. The segment is called Is that bullshit? And specifically we ask, well, how could this be bullshit? When you give a dog a button, they're going to tell you what they want. Oh yes, those dog buttons that voice your canines inner thoughts because we need more dog opinions in the doggy discourse. Who let the dog spout? Sadie Dingfelder up next. You know there's a lot of stress out there and sometimes that could have an impact on your performance. You don't like to talk about it, you don't like to think about it. And then it becomes a spiral getting in the way of your performance. If ED is getting you down, you know the ED that I speak of hims will help you get your confidence and some other things back up. You could be ready when the mood strikes. Feeling a little stalled in the bedroom. Through hims, you could get some gas back in the tank. And I'm not necessarily even talking about fossil burning fuels. I'm talking about yes, your love engine HIMSS is changing men's healthcare by providing you with access to affordable sexual health treatments from the comfort of your couch. HIMS provides access to a range of doctor trusted ED treatments like chewable tablets. Perhaps you've heard of Viagra and Cialis and you're going to save 95% on these name brand medicines. There's an intake form. A medical provider will determine if it's the right treatment option, then they'll send it to you. No insurance. One low price covers everything. Start your free online Visit [e-mail] thegist that's H I M S.com thegist for your personalized ED treatment options. Hisss.com thegist the featured products include compounded products which are not approved nor verified for safety, effectiveness or quality by the fda. Prescription required. See website for details, restrictions and important safety information. Prices vary based on product and subscription plan. This message is sponsored by Greenlight Growing up did you get any better advice in financial education than the phrase money doesn't grow on trees? And this was of course during a time when more money was cash than there is now. So in a way it kind of did. I mean, what a cliche. How unhelpful. You need better. And this is where Greenlight enters the picture. They're a debit card and a money app made for families that help kids learn to save, invest and spend wisely. And you as the parents, can set conditions, let's say do some chores along with the money. But there's learning involved, there's confidence and skill building and it's accessible. Games are played. But I come back to the chores feature. The chores feature really does link money with a reason that you've earned your money. I wish we had something like Green Light in my house. My house was pretty good growing up. I don't know that the money doesn't grow on trees thing was said so often, but there just wasn't the technology available that Green Light brings to the picture where you could do all the things that I'm talking about and really make learning about money an enjoyable and remunerative to some extent experience. Easy, convenient. Parents and kids together, millions of them are using Green Light. Start your risk free Greenlight trial today at greenlight.com the gist. That's greenlight.com/the gist to get started. Greenlight.com/the gist Sadie Dingfelder is back. She plays Is that bullshit with us? And this is one of those issues. Oh, Sadie, we should say is the author of Do I Know you? A Face Blind Reporter's Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory and Imagination. Am I getting that right, Sadie?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Is the reason I'm getting that right as I had it written down on the screen next to me that you said? Yeah, okay. Yeah. And I guess the number one scientific question, the overweening scientific question that informs all others, it's really driving us forward as a species, is can dogs talk with buttons? Am I getting that right?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

That's what the whole NIH is now focused on.

[Mike Pesca]

I think you may be right, and I'm happy with that. You know, they let us. Let us dissuade them from their vaccine chicanery and get into the dog button thing. So what exactly is the claim with the dog buttons? The people who have the buttons, the dogs with the buttons, what are they saying the buttons can do?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

So have you seen these videos?

[Mike Pesca]

I think so, yes.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Okay. Do you want to watch one?

[Mike Pesca]

Okay, let's watch one.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Okay. Here. Just pick whichever one you want to watch.

[Mike Pesca]

Wow. A cavalcade of dog button videos. All right. Right now, we recently added the names of three of Bunny Play Tango. This isn't. This is a smart looking dog. This is a wise dog. This Bunny want to play tango today? Does Bunny want to play tango today? Bunny looks, I would say nonplussed in the traditional definition, which is to say confused. Bunny's an interesting breed. She looks a little schnauzy, but a little poodle. All right. Okay. All right. So that was. Bunny walked around and then stepped on what looks like a giant map of a unmapped continent. And there's a lot of buttons there. I'm not sure I like Bunny. I'm partial to Bunny, but what the hell did I just see? What does that show?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Well, Bunny told his. His human companion that he would like to go play with his friend named Tango. And who's Tango today?

[Mike Pesca]

And who's Tango?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Tango's another specific dog.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, okay. And he did that with the button.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

A button that says Tango.

[Mike Pesca]

Wait, he stepped on. He looks like he just stepped on a lot of buttons. Yeah, but one of them said Tango.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah. In other videos she does say, like, play Tango. Like she's. She like, requests. She has a few dog friends.

[Mike Pesca]

And that. That walking around and stepping on buttons, that was meant. We're meant to interpret that as intentionally communicating something specific.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Not randomly stepping on certain buttons, but not others.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Right, Interesting.

[Mike Pesca]

All right, so Bunny plays Tango.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Right. And there's videos where the different. A lot of dogs have these things, and the dogs, like, seem to ask existential questions like, why dog?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, my dog.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

And yeah, so there's all these videos, and honestly, why not wolf?

[Mike Pesca]

Why not Fox?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Why not what? What dog? I think I've seen that one before.

[Mike Pesca]

Or wet dog. Okay, so there's these. Now, are these buttons commercially available or do the owners rig them up?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

They are commercially available and they come with some preset like labels you can put on them, like walk or outside, but you can also put your own labels on them.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. Like to answer the existential questions. You know, it is like ontologically or deontologically, just whatever. Consequentially. Yeah, you could have your own philosophy to explain this to the dog.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah, yeah, but it's not so random. I mean, I guess like the people. You have to train your dog to use them. Okay, so like, so you have to show. You have to like, show it the object to associate it with the button, for instance.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, okay, Right, right, right. So the dog doesn't read, but it knows a certain symbol means, let's say, tango.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Or it could have just memorized the place on the. On the pad. I think some of them are different colors too.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, okay.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

All right, so maybe that counts. That's interesting. And how many buttons are there on these things on these setups?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

I think the starter pack is three, but you can start adding and adding. And Bunny has like maybe 100 words, I think, and his or her vocabulary.

[Mike Pesca]

Uh huh. One is Tango. Now what is the starter pack? What about door, dog bowl and owner face? Because that. Without actually buying these, this is what most dogs start with. Yeah, like if it winds at the door, it wants to go out. If it winds at the bowl, it wants food, which is always. And if it licks the owner's face, it wants to play.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah, yeah, Those are the main ones. They are outside or play food.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

And what was the other one? Yeah, outside.

[Mike Pesca]

Why do I exist?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

And why do I exist?

[Mike Pesca]

And can you solve the situation with the Uyghurs?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

But so interestingly, when. So they did. Okay, so, you know, we all know the Clever Hans, but maybe we'll.

[Mike Pesca]

The horse.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yes. So Clever Hans. Yeah. Was this horse that appeared to be able to do pretty complicated math problems, but they figured out that the owner, horses and dogs and are very, very good at reading human body language.

[Mike Pesca]

Right.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

And so the horse was just cued on into its owner. And so when he was getting. He would stomp the number answer. And when he was getting close to the end, the owner would get more and more exc. And then the horse was just very good at predicting when it was done.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

And so that's the first effect that the scientists need to rule out.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. It's not just the human cueing the dog.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Right, right. So they did an experiment. They meaning Federico Rossano.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay, sure.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

And he is at. Where is he at?

[Mike Pesca]

USCD University of Ralston Purina.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Okay. Yeah. He's super legit and he gets so much guff. I don't know a better word from all the other scientists because the whole area of rough of human animal speech is a very weird and long weird. It's kind of become taboo to even study it because there's such a history of weirdness, including like women who lived with a dolphin and.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, I know about that. Yes, certain favors were exchanged.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, but they did this great experiment where they had the scientists come into people's houses and the owner was put in like a different room.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

And the scientist bad.

[Mike Pesca]

Owner bad. So the owner got a timeout and.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Then the scientists would press a button. But they didn't want the scientists to know the button press either. Right. So they had like noise canceling headphones on the scientist and they covered the words on the buttons.

[Mike Pesca]

So then. Okay, explain what the experiment was though.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Okay. The experiment was the scientists would press one of the three buttons that were in this experiment.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

And the. Oh, yeah, and you know what it was? The third button was the control. It was a nonsense word. Okay, yeah. So they would press a button and one of them would say play or outside and they would see if the dog responded appropriately. So the question is just do the dogs understand what the buttons are saying without the owners in the room?

[Mike Pesca]

I thought. Okay, now I'm confused because I thought the buttons were for the dogs to communicate, but it's two way communication. Owners hit a play button and then the dog knows to play because the button says play.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

I think generally the owners just say play.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, right.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

But like if you think the dogs, if you're going to prove that the dogs are using these buttons. Yes, they should be able to understand the buttons.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, that's true. That makes sense.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

So, but and also when you're teaching the dog what the play is, you hit, you do hit play and then you say play and you play with the dog. Yeah, so. So the, they had the dogs, the researchers pressed the button and the dogs responded appropriately. They didn't do anything for the nonsense word and for play. They would run to the door, pick up a toy, and then actually it didn't work very well for food. They just probably looked for like they wanted to see if the dogs would render their food bowl, but instead they just looked like kind of expectantly at the.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay, researchers. Okay, so this is fine. I guess you have to establish the baseline of research, build on foundations. I have some critiques of it already. But so maybe some of these buttons can communicate to A dog that we want to play. Although I don't. I wouldn't see why that wouldn't be the case. When an owner says, play, you want to play, then the dog gets excited to play. What is it different from if there's a button going, what? Making a sound that the dog associates with play.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yes.

[Mike Pesca]

You know, why is that different from holding up a squeak toy to a dog and going, squeaky, squeaky, squeaky. And then the dog gets excited because they want to play with the squeak toy. It's just a noise they associate with playing. And that noise could be a button. I'm down with that. I think that's perfectly acceptable. But I don't think it moves us forward in terms of dog human communication. But please, I'd like you to move us forward.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Well, the next. So they're going very slowly.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

And their next question was, are the dogs pressing buttons at random?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Or are they grouping them together in ways that you wouldn't. That are non random.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay. Like a sentence structure like this, then that, then the other.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

It's really just two or three word groups.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

And it's whether or not, like, I think that you could actually reverse them and they would count the same.

[Mike Pesca]

All right.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

So play outside is the same as outside play.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Well, you know, Latinate languages put the.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Verb for and they. And then, you know, for each. Every single one of these dogs has its own board configuration. So they had to model what a random set would look like given the dog's board configuration, using network theory.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Isn't that amazing?

[Mike Pesca]

Well, it is.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

It was 152 dogs. So they did it for each one of these dogs.

[T Mobile Advertiser]

Wow.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Who's funding this?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Well, the way they collected this data was owner. So this is another weakness in the study. Right. It was owners reporting that every single time their dog pressed a button, they were supposed to report it on a little custom app.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, you can't like automatically record that. You can't have it wired in. You can. It costs another $400,000.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah. But everyone has their own buttons set up. Like, who knows?

[Mike Pesca]

Okay. So when they started doing it with multi buttons, what did they find?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

So they found the goal. The question was, are they doing it at random?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

The answer was, no, they are not at random. They were grouping things together.

[Mike Pesca]

And.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

And I don't say meaningful, but in predictable non random ways.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

And then the question what things would be put together? Go outside was big. Oh. Another interesting thing is they wanted to ask whether the dogs were just copying the owners so they. But it turns out the owners are constantly pressing later, like food later, play later. And the dogs are constantly pressing now, food now, play now.

[Mike Pesca]

Classic dog, classic bunny.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

That just feels a little bit like understanding.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

But yeah, so that was the second thing they did and what was the other thing they tried to rule out? Yeah, non random. They're not copying their owners and they're responding appropriately. But that is all we know so far.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay, wait, so that is the current state of research.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

That is the current state of research.

[Mike Pesca]

Have they. Would they have published any. What do they call them, like null sets or findings where they tested something and it didn't.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Oh, good question. They should.

[Mike Pesca]

They should if they were nice. So they. As far as we know, they never tried a theory and then ruled out that the dogs were actually thinking at a higher level.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

I mean, they haven't gotten there yet, but I think they would if they got it. And everyone's pre registering their studies these days, so that's kind of cool.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

So what are the claims of the dog owners so far? The scientists say that they. That play means something, although bowl means look at me expectantly.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

And that there are some groupings that seem to make sense in a way. Right. Play. And the dog will answer. Play now. The dog wants to do everything now. The dog loves the now button.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Right. All right.

[Mike Pesca]

That's, I guess, cool. It doesn't, I do have to say it doesn't advance us more than non button communication. Like you want to play and the dog gets excited or the dog's like, want to play, want to play, want to play. And the owner's like, later, later. But anyway, so there's a button in between. I don't know how that helps us that much.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Right. I mean, in the case of bunny, maybe you would know. You. Bunny could only communicate through body language that it want. He wants to play. But with the buttons, he can specify which neighbor dog he wants to play with.

[Mike Pesca]

That's. See, I'm sorry, I can't rule it out, but there's no way they have preferences for neighbor dogs. They don't care.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

You don't think they care?

[Mike Pesca]

I think when they see the dog, I don't think they could think ahead.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

I think.

[Mike Pesca]

I don't know. Can dogs think ahead? Can dogs plan?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

That is the next question is, can dogs think about objects that are not within their immediate.

[Mike Pesca]

Great question. And the answer is we don't know. Oh. So how are we doing the buttons? We're saying that we have a button system Which I don't believe that says I want to play with tango.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

We haven't even established that a dog has any concept of what tango is if it's not seeing or probably more appropriately smelling Tango.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't know. But they did find that the dogs were very, like, very often initiating button interactions. So the dogs are finding the buttons to be useful to communicate with their humans.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Now you would think any tuned in dog owner can understand what its dog's trying to say. I think, like, just through body language.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Or also that the stakes of getting it wrong are pretty low. Oh, my God. He played with Muffy, not Tango. How will he ever forgive me?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

But there's definitely some kind of fun. Very circumstantial evidence that dogs sometimes coin their own phrases to describe things like kids, like teenagers.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, that's where. That's where we got on fleek. It's from a schnauzer.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

That is such an old one. Can you think of a newer one?

[Mike Pesca]

A new phrase?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah, a new, new phrase.

[Mike Pesca]

Are you sus. Just before with you. That's not that new. Yeah, right.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

That's solid.

[Mike Pesca]

My kids are always using phrases and then defining it. With me, I'm like, I got it from content text. You know, that's a little woo woo. I'm like, I got it.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Well, I've never heard that one.

[Mike Pesca]

No, I just made it up. But that's the sort of thing they say. I don't know. That guy's a little. I'm like, I get it.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

They would say dulu as.

[Mike Pesca]

That's a big one. Yes, yes.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

But the dog. There was a dog that saw an ambulance and then pressed squeak car.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

And so that was pretty fun. And then there was another dog, or maybe it was Bunny, who. Who said, like, small couch outside, and Bunny has wanted to go outside to sit on its little chair.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay. Yeah, Yeah. I don't believe any of this.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

This is all gonna come crumbling down. It was all a giant scam. I do. I honestly do.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

You do? You really do.

[Mike Pesca]

If anyone cares to put enough effort in. I mean, look, I guess you would say that in a limited way. I'm very. I'm very skeptical here. In a limited way, the dog is communicating something. But as I've established, it doesn't seem that they're communicating things that they couldn't communicate in the ways dogs and their owners, human companions, have communicated for millennia.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Right.

[Mike Pesca]

You want to convince me that there is, like, three more buttons that might mean something. Yeah. But is she putting. Or who's the dog's owner?

[Ryan Reynolds]

He.

[Mike Pesca]

Or she.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

She.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Is she putting all the nonsense interactions online? I mean, you could just edit the ones that seem to work.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Right.

[Mike Pesca]

Also, do we have their map in our home? Like, we don't even know what the buttons say, right?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

No, you can hear them. I mean, I guess you could edit it, I guess. But. But even so, like, if people are editing it, I'm disappointed in them because the buttons feel very random to me. There's very long pauses between the buttons.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

So that would. I just can't imagine dogs thinking that slowly. I mean.

[Mike Pesca]

And has anyone done an experiment on this to disprove large claims therein?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Oh, no, no. But they're. They're inching up to it. And, you know, they're probably not gonna find that the dogs are using language like humans, but maybe they'll find something cool, like dogs really can think ahead a little bit. Maybe they can plan ahead a little bit.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Or something like that. I mean, we can. There's a lot to learn here, I think. But that said, you're on the side, it looks like, of Alexandra Horowitz. Have you ever talked to her?

[Mike Pesca]

No.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Oh, you would love her. She is a dog expert.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, wait, I know her. Does she live on the Upper west side? Yeah, I know. I did a live event with her. She's great. Yeah, I like her a lot.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah, she does.

[Mike Pesca]

She has two dogs. I think one of them recently died, but she wrote a book about her two dogs. Yes, yes, I know her.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

You're the puppy. Yeah, she's great. And she. She is anti dog button words because she says, oh, my God, like, we are already asking so much of our dogs. We're putting them in, like, stupid outfits. You know, they're actually already exceptionally.

[Mike Pesca]

Sombrero. No. Sombrero. No. Sorry, it's time for the sombrero. Sombrero. No, sombrero. Hates sombrero.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

And so why sombrero?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

So. And honestly, I kind of feel like that's the magic of having an animal in your house, is that you do get to try to meet them where they are.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

And, like, why are we trying to make them use language?

[Mike Pesca]

Also, why do we want dogs to be, you know, smarter or more communicative? Does it. Don't dogs give us so much joy? And some of it is the mystery of what's going on in their world. And do we really think, how crazy are we as a species if we think we're going to improve this interaction with or what we get from dogs by giving them more consciousness, by giving them more of an ability to communicate with us. That's so. It is. It is exactly. Flying too close to the sun and wishing. Be careful being careful what you wish for. We don't want that from dogs. We want them to be innocent and, you know, three buttons max.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah, yeah. I also think Bunny is like only a small number of dogs can actually be trained to use these buttons. And so they're. They're like kind of the exception and they tend to be really anxious. So may. Maybe it's like related that if you're smart, you're going to be like unhappy and you're just. If we're trying to bootstrap them into even more intelligence, they're going to get more unhappy.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. I think as we probably address their very basic animalistic needs. What will fill the gap once all of those requirements are met? Probably psychosis or at least, you know, the need for a psychiatrist. This is. This is really terrible. It's really dark. I think that there probably is some good application for this with the higher primates, your gorillas, Coco, People who could sign.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah, people.

[Mike Pesca]

I say people.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

People. They've definitely done button words with other animals, I think. But I don't know the whole literature about chimps and things like that. I have no idea if they're coming up with novel combinations or anything.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay, so are there any other major big studies or.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

No.

[Mike Pesca]

Are there other. Are there other studies that people are. That. That the button enthusiasts see as the next big breakthrough? Like, we need to get this study to show that Bunny and those of her ilk can actually communicate well.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

So there's no one else doing this research as far as I can tell. But these guys have really set up this massive program where if you want to be involved, you can. It's this like, huge. It's probably the biggest citizen science program.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, my God.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

And everyone. You get your custom app and you report every time your dog presses buttons and it gets, you know. And so they're trying. So people are probably like participating in an experiment right now. That's. That's pushing the. Advancing the frontier of dog button knowledge.

[Mike Pesca]

Now I'll just ask you as an expert, as someone who's. Who loves animals and maybe wants it to be true. Would you say you want it to be true?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Oh, gosh, I don't know. I don't know. I think it's really fun to like, be. Think about what it's like to be a dog, you know, because, like, their primary sense of smell. So that means, I imagine, since we're sight, if you, like, do one as an analog, the dogs that you can imagine them having almost a long exposure photograph, and so they can see, like, things that were here yesterday, and everything's, like, sort of slowly fading.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

I don't know. I think it's more fun to think about how we're different than trying to, like, force them into being.

[Mike Pesca]

That's a great point. It's like the dog version of nostalgia. It was there. It was a squirrel once. Tango Bunny. Nostalgia. The whiff, the smell of Madelines from my youth as a puppy. All right, let us make a ruling. Can dogs or dogs can communicate through buttons? Is that bullshit?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

They are communicating through buttons. That's true. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Dogs can communicate complex thoughts through buttons. More than the regular whining at the door to go out. Is that bullshit?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

We don't know yet.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay. Very good. Sadie Dingfelder is the author of Do I Know you? A Face Blind Reporter's Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory and Imagination. And she has a dog named Nothing. Nothing. It's a weird name for a dog. What does your dog say via buttons?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Let's go.

[Mike Pesca]

But you have cats.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

I have two cats.

[Mike Pesca]

Do you think they could communicate?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Not. Oh, they communicate very well with me.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

You know what they want?

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Yeah. Because they always just want food.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. And to eat your face when you're dead. As we've established.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

No. But they barely ever do that.

[Mike Pesca]

Sadie, thank you so much.

[Sadie Dingfelder]

Thanks.

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[Mike Pesca]

And now the spiel earlier this week I assessed the post George Floyd policing reforms. Now most didn't take and that probably saved a lot of lives. A few modest changes in a few cities and states may have helped around the edges. That is true. But the louder calls the Clarion calls abolish the police, defund the police. Those did not take. How they usually played out is the phrases immediately proved poisonous. So the boulderized versions like reimagine policing but also take some money away from budgets. Those were the things that got talked about and in some places implemented. I talked about a few of the places where defunding actually happened and in those cities murders rose a lot more than the 27% national rise in 2020 and the 8% bump after that. I want to talk about some specific cities and in particular one article that stuck with me. I could not let it go. And now you all get to hear about it. So the headline in this Guardian article that was published five years after the death of George Floyd, like many articles were asking about policing, the headline was While critics say the movement failed, the movement of defund the Police, Seattle and Austin were triumphs. So I focused on Tuesday on Austin. Millions really was redirected from policing to housing, mental health care, community led safety. Great. They really defunded. That's the triumph the Guardian talked about. What about the tradeoffs? The Guardian did not talk about them. The article by Melissa Hellman, a senior reporter on the Guardian's Race and Equity team, mentioned no possible costs of funding. So you heard me talk about this already. I did digging. There was a massive spike in homicides in 2021, exactly coinciding with Austin's biggest defunding push. $141 million was cut out of the police budget in 2020. So there's been stabilization since. But congratulations Austin, the homicide rate is still more than double the pre 2020 levels. That is what we would consider not good. So why write a story about success and not mention all the murders? Who is the article for? The language in the article supplies some clues. Quote, in the spring of 2019, Devin Anderson was tabling on police reform. Tabling? Moving a legislative item to the end of the agenda? No, it's organizer slang for setting up a table and handing out flyers. I figured it out from context clues, but it is a word that's Familiar to activists. It was foreign and I had to stop and think, wait, what is this tabling me? And later in the article we're told about the Advancement project, quote, a 26 year old civil rights organization that focuses on movement lawyering. No definition of movement lawyering. Again, I could use some context terms. I guess this means using the law and legal services to advance the social movement. Here was a definition in an NYU law article supporting the building and exercise of collective power led by the most directly impacted. Got it. If you speak the language, it signals a lot. If you don't, sort of static in the background. So I took this article and we are going to get to the homicide rates in the other cities they talk to. Seattle was in the headline. Milwaukee appeared a lot in the article. Those were the three cities. I put it into Chat GPT. I asked Chat GPT because the Guardian would not tell me, do the homicide rates in Milwaukee, Seattle and Austin support calling them success stories? The exact language of the article. Well, here are the stats. Milwaukee, 2021.27 million diverted from police. 2021, another 2 million diverted from police. Seattle 10.2 million diverted. And then Seattle had its highest murder rate in over four decades. The Guardian didn't just leave that out, they replaced it. They replaced it with activist quotes, soft focus feelings and slogans about reimagining safety. There's no data, there's no dissent. There is no accountability for whether these quote, successes made the actual people in the cities safer. Here's the Milwaukee numbers. Now those defunding figures, they were very small and they were hyped up a little bit in the article as standing for some form of success. Success defined as anywhere where the police got less money. But what was happening in Milwaukee while the police were getting less money? 2019, the base year line, 98 homicides. 2020, 190 homicides. Then 193. Then 215, luckily coming down 169, 131. The years the city funded the cops less were the exact years the murder rose the most. Much more, trying to be fair, much more than it rose nationally because it did rise nationally. I asked Chat GPT if this all met the standard for a news article. It wasn't in the opinion section, it was in the news section. Here's what ChatGPT said and I just checked in to try to get an unbiased computer voice. The piece is a valuable story of activist intent. Okay, I buy that it's much less useful for evaluating the results of Reform. A reasonable reader would come away under informed and potentially misled unless they already knew the outside context. That's not exactly how news should work. I asked, should it be labeled as news? The answer was no. Why? Because it lacks journalistic balance. There's no dissenting voice, no critical metrics like homicide data. It frames the issue through a normative lens. It's a thesis, not a report. It emphasizes aspiration over outcome. Real policy coverage must confront results, not just good intentions and slogans. So is me now, not chatgpt? When you frame it as news, I say it has a cost. And the cost is it erodes readers trust. It blurs the line between reporting what happened and narrating what activists hope is happening. A lot of quotes from activists who are tabling and some results like they took away some of the money from the police. Thank you, Chat GPT, for being a sounding board. I'm going to go further than that. The story, the one that advocates hope is happening. Their version of the story, it that's apparently enough for the Guardian editors because they know their niche, they serve their niche. And that's how media works today. Serve the narrow slice that pays attention to you. But I look at it like cotton candy news. It's not good news. It has the sheen of struggle. So you wouldn't say it's a distraction from real events, but it's sort of like cotton candy because it gives a temporary rush. It seems to affirm and then it melts on contact. If you're not already doing movement lawyering and tabling, if you're just a regular person, maybe a very progressive person, wondering, hey, why does my city still fund the police? And you read, read that story, you might be frustrated. Why can't we be more like Milwaukee and Austin and Seattle? These are success stories that get it. Now, if you're actually involved in local politics, if you understand the realities of running a city, you'll probably feel a little burned by a story like that. Oh, God. People are going to read this and they're going to come to meetings and they're going to yell at me that I'm still funding the police. As someone who's somewhat responsible for local governance, but the reality is you can't take away money from police. You can't have fewer police officers and accept the same or acceptable levels of safety. In Milwaukee, the first black mayor ever, Cavalier Johnson, definitely has instincts to reform police. He went up against a Republican rival. He's in favor of disruptor programs. He's not in favor. However, of taking money away from police because every mayor knows you have to keep crime down. That is a must for a mayor. And a piece like this is just not useful to him. It's not relevant to him. It's a distraction for people who might wave it in his face. And it's so very, very important that people not die. The mayor has to mayor in the real world. This article doesn't really have to exist in that same world. So I just am left wondering, who does it help? How does it build civic engagement? How does it build belief in the possibility of actual progress? I think in its own way this article is as damaging as the cynicism and lies of Trump style. Tough guy, tough on crime ignorance. Because what I think we all want, whether we know it or not, most of us want. Some of us want to be flattered and have our worldview repeated back to us. But what so many of us want are fair brokers. And when trust is violated, it has real costs. Pretending that failed dangerous programs work is an idealism. It is betrayal. And that's it for today's show. Cory Wara produces the Gist. Ashley Khan is our ccbaso. The main CBSO is Michelle Pesca. Astrid Green does our social and Leo Baums our Internet. Thanks for listening. The gist is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses. Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.