“Teaching Dogs to Talk is Easier than You Think!”

The article I chose for my current events was titled “Teaching Dogs to Talk is Easier Than You Think”. I found this article on CNN’s website. This article was written by Anne Woolsey.

Melody Jackson an associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology created an invention that has been said to give dogs a voice. The invention is a vest supplied with sensors that can send text notifications to a smartphone, or cues that can be heard. Teaming up with Thad Starner and research scientist Clint Zeagler, Melody Jackson created this vest for the project FIDO, or “ Facilitating Interactions for Dogs with Occupations”. FIDO is sponsored by DARPA, (Defense Advanced Research Project Protection Agency), and the National Science Foundation. Their test dog is Jackson’s border collie, Sky. She has helped them test out the vest, and helped troubleshoot by showing the team what is A-ok, and what isn’t. The dogs are trained with frisbees and balls to know how to detect a bomb, like trying to tell his/her handler what kind of explosive it is. But that’s not it. Jackson and her team have gone above and beyond and have developed a second vest, and are working on a third! The second vest is a medical alert vest. If the dog finds a trapped person when wearing the vest, he/she can trigger a sensor and let that person know that help is coming soon. The third vest that Jackson and her team are working on is a vest that will help the handler track his dog. If a dog finds it’s target and runs off, this vest activates a sensor and allows GPS coordinates to be sent to the handler. Jackson also thinks personal functions can be added to the vest such as the dog being able to turn around and pull a tab that calls 911, and with someone's GPS location can text that person's husband. The dog with the vest could also alert people that have speaking impairments or that are deaf to tell them what someone might have said, or when the doorbell rings. Jackson believes any dog that can be trained can wear these vests and make them work. One dog even figured it out in 27 seconds which proves, anything is possible!

I chose this article because I personally love dogs and loved the fact that Melody Jackson was making the world a better place. I found it interesting that all these different vests that regular trained dogs could just activate and help soldiers on the battlefield, big time! They can even help people with disabilities outside of the battle field which I found pretty amazing. Melody Jackson and her team are changing the world one step at a time!

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/18/tech/talking-dogs-georgia-institute-technology/index.html