An AI translator could enable owners to understand their dogs

A machine that was designed to transcribe human speech has been adapted to decode the sounds made by pooches, with promising results.

The device was able to identify different breeds from their barking and could also detect the tone of nearly every woof and growl.

Experts captured over 200 minutes of barking from 74 dogs in Mexico in their home environments, and the AI was able to differentiate between a variety of sounds - including angry barks at a hostile stranger and normal yapping at somebody they did not know.

University of Michigan researcher Rada Mihalcea said: "It is the first time technique optimised for human speech have been built upon to help with decoding animal communication.

"Our results show that the sounds and patterns derived from human speech can serve as a foundation for analysing and understanding the acoustic patterns of other sounds, such as animal vocalisations."

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