DALTON TANONAKA, CNN ANCHOR: Science has just bridged another gap between humans and animals. Dog owners can now find out what is on the minds of their pets -- or try to -- with a new Bow-lingual collar (ph). CNN's Denise Dillon explains.</s>DENISE DILLON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Up until now, the only way you could what your pet is thinking is a wag of the tail here, a growl there, a bark or two. But now a Japanese toy maker has come up with a canine-to- human translator. It's the Bow-lingual (ph). It doesn't really interpret words or phrases; instead it helps you determine what kind of mood your dog is in.</s>MASAMI OCHIAI, INDEX CORPORATION (through translator): This is not about communication between two human beings; instead, we asked ourselves if it was possible to communicate with animals, and our answer to that is that it is possible.</s>DILLON: This promotional video explains how it works. There's a microphone on the dog's collar. When he barks or whines, it senses the timbre of the bark and translates that into the dog's emotions. The information is then sent to what is called a canine emotion pager. The pager tells you what the barks mean in terms of human emotions, like anger, frustration, even a feeling of accomplishment. After collecting data from a full day of barking, Bow-lingual (ph) will give the owners a list of their dog's emotions using 100 preprogrammed sentences. Bow-lingual (ph) is expected to go on sale this coming February, for just over $100, but so far the translator is only available in Japanese, which could present a whole other language barrier, one harder to translate than a simple wag of the tail. Denise Dillon, CNN.
In Japan, Device Tells Masters What Dogs Would Say