Brin Palmer BBC Scotland

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Your dog may be your best friend, but have you ever thought that if it feels lonely, it would be good for it to call you?

A Scottish scholar designed a device that allows dogs to make video calls with their owners just by shaking the ball.

The ball is equipped with an accelerometer, and when it senses movement, it connects to the phone.

Its creator at the University of Glasgow says it can help pets with separation anxiety disorder-because their owners return to work after the pandemic.

The system is the creation of Dr. Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas, an animal computer interaction expert in the University’s School of Computer Science.

Dr. Hirskyj-Douglas conducted a series of 16-day "learning days" with the 10-year-old Labrador Retriever Zack over the course of three months.

The accelerometer was built with the help of colleagues from Aalto University in Finland and hidden in Zach's favorite toy.

I saw Zac making 18 calls two days ago, half of which were "accidents" when he slept on the ball, indicating that the system was too sensitive.

But during several calls he was awake, he showed the owner some toys they often play with, and approached the screen, suggesting that he wanted to interact with her.

By the end of the 7-day experiment, the accelerometer adjustments had been perfected. Zack made a total of 35 calls, an average of 5 calls per day.

Although many seem accidental, Dr. Hirskyj-Douglas said that Zack showed “extra interest”—putting ears up close to the screen—during the interaction, she used her mobile phone to show him her office, restaurant, and subway station. And street performers.

Although the scholar said that she was “unsure that Zach knew the causal relationship between picking up the ball and making a phone call”, it was obvious that sometimes he was “absolutely interested in what he saw, and he showed that he was in our body together. Show some of the same behaviors."

Dr. Hirskyj-Douglas said that an unexpected result of the experiment was that when she called Zac, she found that she became anxious, and Zac was not in front of the camera or close to the screen.

She said that this is something she will consider in the next iteration of the system.

"No matter what form it takes, we have taken a new step towards developing some kind of'dog internet', which gives pets more autonomy and control of their interaction with technology," she added.

"This can help the'Pandemic Puppy' find new ways to deal with the pressure of being home alone when the owner returns to work."

A dog welfare charity recently reported that the number of people considering abandoning the so-called "pandemic puppies" increased by 35% after the situation changed after the lockdown.

Animal psychologist Dr. Roger Mugford told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland program that dogs have controlled their owners through behaviors that “they know it will make humans move”, such as shaking their food bowls when they are hungry, when they want us Woke up when scratching on the door.

He said that experiments have shown that dogs respond better to facial expressions that are "smiling" on the screen, rather than to facial expressions that are "grumpy or aggressive", and research shows that about half of dogs like to watch TV, especially when they are on the screen. When I saw an animal on it.

He added: "What is really important about this science is that it gives people another understanding of how smart dogs are." "They are social animals, and it is really serious for a dog to be left alone. If they are allowed to be used Technology allows them to have a more interesting life, and they will take advantage of it.

"Dogs are social animals, and we humans integrate ourselves into their groups. We become a very important resource, and dogs want to contact us.

"Their complaining or scratching at the door is what we call uneasy separation or stressful behavior. They are just misleading attempts to contact us when they are alone."

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