A South Korean company has developed a collar for dogs using artificial intelligence that can determine what a dog is feeling based on the pattern of its barking.
According to the news agency Reuters, through a collar called Petpuls, pet owners can use a smartphone application to find out whether their dogs are happy and content, or anxious, angry, or depressed. The device also records dogs’ physical movements and rest patterns.
Petpuls Lab’s Director of Global Marketing, Andrew Gill, said the device acts like a language of dogs that humans can understand.
It is worth noting that the company began working on this collar three years ago, closely observing different barking patterns of dogs to assess their emotions.
For this project, which started in 2017, the company developed a special algorithm and created a database of sounds from more than 10,000 dogs belonging to 50 different breeds.
A South Korean woman, Moon Se-mi, owns a six-year-old Border Collie. She says she used to think her pet was happy when she played with him and depressed when she was not at home. However, in reality, he felt most upset when he lost while playing with her—similar to how humans typically feel.
Seoul National University tested the device and reported that the collar was up to 90 percent accurate in identifying emotions through sounds.
The company claims this is a unique device of its kind and the first ever created to understand the emotions of pet dogs.
Petpuls began online sales of the collar in October last year, pricing it at $99.
It should be noted that the global pet care market was estimated to be worth over $138 billion in 2020. According to Euromonitor data, after the emergence of the coronavirus, people spent more time at home with their pets.
Andrew Gill further said that more people have now started keeping dogs, but many were unable to understand their pets’ emotions.
He added that Petpuls played an important role during the coronavirus period, helping dog owners understand what their pets were feeling and strengthening the bond between owners and their animals.