Live Interview with What About Bunny's Alexis Part 1

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If you've watched a fluffy Sheepadoodle press buttons to "talk" to her mom, you already know Bunny. This week, Bunny's mom Alexis Devine joins me for Part 1 of a conversation I have wanted to have for years. 🐾

Alexis didn't start as a dog expert. She picked a Doodle because Doodles are cute, and then learned the hard and beautiful way that there is a sensitive, intelligent working dog living under all that fluff. We talk about why the looks can be deceiving, why so many Doodles are wired for alertness and herding, and what that means for the dog in your living room.

Then we get into the buttons. Alexis explains how the system actually works, how Bunny pressed her very first button, and the insight that made me tear up: the magic isn't that the dog speaks English. It's that the buttons teach US how to listen.

This one will change how you see your Doodle. Part 2 drops next Thursday.

Save 12% off of the button system Bunny uses with code DOODLEPRO at thedoodlepro.com/shop/fluentpet!

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Corinne Gearhart is the founder of The Doodle Pro®, a science-based training platform helping Doodle parents raise calmer, well-mannered dogs using positive reinforcement. She is the host of The Doodle Pro® Podcast and author of Your Doodle’s Daily Schedule Blueprint™.

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Transcript

Alexis Devine: [00:00:00] she was standing by the door, I was sitting at the table and I was watching her out of the corner of my eye, and she was looking down at the button and up at me, and down and up again.

And then she lifted her paw and she smashed the button herself for the first time. And she looked up all proud, her ears flew out, and we went outside, and it was game on at that point. 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: If you enjoy cute puppy videos on social media and you've been online in the past five or six years, you're going to know all about our topic today. If you've seen that adorable sheepadoodle pressing those buttons and talking to their mom, you get to meet Bunny's mom today, Alexis Devine. Her sheepadoodle Bunny, known as What About Bunny, on social media became an internet sensation in the fall of 2020.

I know Bunny helped get me through the pandemic. Videos of her communicating with assistive technology from FluentPet went viral. Bunny now has over [00:01:00] 100 buttons individually programmed with various words that she uses to communicate needs, wants, and even express when she's in pain.

Hello, Alexis. I am thrilled to have you here today. 

Alexis Devine: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here chatting with you. 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: Thank you. And before we started recording, I got to get a sneak peek of your pups, and if yours are anything like mine, they're gonna get up and walk around and get off-camera.

So do you mind introducing us to your furry pack behind you? 

Alexis Devine: I don't mind at all. So Bunny is now over here. Hi, Bunny 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: girl.

Hi, Sam. Oh. Hi, she's- She's got her buttons ready to communicate- Yep ... when she wants. Yes. 

Alexis Devine: She's ready.

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: As Bunny is a Sheepadoodle, and you've got your standard poodle, and tell me the mix or breed of your third pup. He's a Papillon.

Oh, [00:02:00] perfect. Yeah. So who has the most kind of guarding, alert dog tendencies between them? 

Alexis Devine: I'd say that Bunny, the combination of poodle and Old English Sheepdog is a particularly sensitive combination. I agree. Not a combination I would necessarily recommend- ... because you've got that sensitivity to environmental stimuli from the herding dog.

Oh, she's talking right now. Oh, she said potty, of course. We just went. It's all good. She's just, she's just- 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: She just wants outside. There's something out the window. She thinks- Needs to investigate. 

Alexis Devine: Exactly. Yeah. So she's got a, she's got a lot of sensitivity to- ... sudden environmental contrasts. She really likes to know where her people are, what the animals around her are doing.

She likes to be in control. 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: Yes. 

Alexis Devine: And Tenrec, as a small dog part of what they were bred for was to be little alert dogs. So he is very sensitive to environmental stimuli in a different way. More so anything he hears, anything he sees, [00:03:00] he'll just bark and let me know, and he'll come...

it's been really fascinating to see how the different words are used in different contexts. Because I don't, though I don't have any human children, I would presume, as you just said, that, a word can have a specific meaning that we've built, but it can be used to mean all sorts of different things.

So it's really about the context in which our language- ... is used that creates the broader meaning. 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: Yes. I'm thrilled to dive into that with you today. And I do want to... I just hear your dog training side come out. Oh. Yeah. And you're addressing something that when we talk to a lot of dog trainers, they aren't doodle parents, and you're addressing something we talk about a lot on The Doodle Pro- Where the looks that when you're picking between one of these mixes, the looks can be sometimes deceiving of, "Oh, I just want the one with the light blue eyes and that silver and white coat."

But the Bernedoodle has the [00:04:00] tricolor, that there's so much more underneath than these looks. 

Alexis Devine: Yeah. So I didn't know anything about dogs before- Yeah ... getting Bunny. I didn't know anything about behavior. I hadn't had a dog that was mine. I'd had a couple of dogs in- ... childhood, I didn't really have much to do with raising or training or- Yeah

or anything like that. I really just wanted a cute dog, and a doodle seemed like a cute dog. And I did-- I wasn't picking based on temperament. I- You're not alone ... yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I wasn't picking based on any of the criteria that I should have been picking on, and I have since obviously learned a ton about behavior.

I've become a certified professional dog trainer. 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: Yeah. 

Alexis Devine: But there is so much to know above and beyond what a dog looks like. I think it's really important to take into account how they were bred, how they were raised before you pick them up, how they've been socialized, what the individual breeds that have been mixed in were bred to do, because that's gonna- Yes

tell you a lot about their future personality. And then of course, looking at, the personality [00:05:00] traits, temperamental traits of the parent dogs and prior generations and health considerations. There's so much to take into account that I knew absolutely nothing about, that I now know quite a bit about.

Yes. And it's... I think it's important for us to learn those things and be able to help other people make informed decisions in that regard. 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: I completely agree. I just had Jean Donaldson on the podcast, and we were talking about, we pick these breeds that for hundreds of years we bred into them alert barking, watchdog, herding.

And then just in the past couple decades, we want them to just lie on a mat and not do the jobs that we bred into them. 

Alexis Devine: Yeah. It's wild. Oh, I 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: hear some buttons in the background. 

Alexis Devine: Yeah. She's being pretty persistent right now. Look at her. She's "I'm gonna sit here and pout until you let me 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: in."

Look at her. I'm happy to take a potty break if she really needs it. You know her best. 

Alexis Devine: She does not need a potty break. Perfect. She just needs an attention break. But that... we [00:06:00] talked about this, Bubba. Can you lie down for me? Come here. Come lie down for me. Thank you, mama.

Yes, 100%. I think and everyone, like, all the positive reinforcement trainers that I know are talking about this right now, how ill-suited our modern-day dogs are to how we live.

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: And I found 

Alexis Devine: that to be very much the case, especially for a sensitive and reactive dog like Bunny. Yeah. The environment that I was living in the city was just not conducive to the quality of life that I wanted to see my dogs living, so I decided to move into the middle of nowhere. I moved off-grid.

I'm about 45 minutes from the nearest gas station. Wow, yeah. 55 acres bordered on three sides by state land because I really wanted to be able to explore the behavioral impacts of agency on my dogs. So now we live in an environment where I can open the door, no leash, no collar. My dogs can walk outside.

They can go sniff deer poop or, you know- ... if they see a chipmunk or a squirrel, they can chase it. They can watch the elk on the, the hillside [00:07:00] across the way. And they just have a lot more freedom. They can say- ... "I'd like to go this way," and then we can walk in that direction. And so I have very little control.

Broadly I have control 'cause I'm the mom, right? I have- Yeah ... to ensure their safety. But it's much more of a partnership, and I get to do a lot of active listening in terms of when they want to go, we go. Where they want to go, we go. If they wanna go sniff and explore, we really have the freedom to do that, which is a luxury and a privilege, and I feel like that's how dogs should live.

But it's not- ... the way they can live. By and large now- ... 80% of the world's dogs are free-roaming. That's not the case in America, obviously. And we're seeing- ... many more cases of sensitive, reactive dogs on anxiolytics. And so yeah, I wanted to explore what would hap- if we were in an environment that supported some really doggy behavior.

Yeah ... and I think it's helped in a lot of ways. It's helped me too, actually. Just being able to live in partnership [00:08:00] with my dogs in this way has been pretty special, because I think it's something that most people don't get to experience, right? So I'd already had this experience of communicating in new ways and being able to listen in different ways, and now I have this experience of being able to literally walk outside as partners instead of as I am the controller, you are the controlee.

You're on this collar and leash, and we're- Yes ... going for this straight walk down this road. Maybe you can sniff, maybe you can't. Maybe we get run up on by another dog, maybe we don't. It's been a really fascinating and beautiful thing for me to explore personally. 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: Alexis- Definitely changed- As you're talking about this, I...

For those listening and not watching, I'm, like, literally tearing up. The way that you're describing partnership. You used the word control, and I just don't hear that- in any way. This isn't about your ego. Or, you've literally moved your whole life, which isn't the only way to meet your dog's needs, in part.

But yes, like Suzanne Clothier, [00:09:00] Clothier talks about the power of our thumbs. Yes, we're humans. We open the door. We open the food- ... the food container and stuff, and the treat jar. But the way that you're describing this partnership is just so beautiful. And I wonder, you started as being a first-time pet parent in getting Bunny.

Did Bunny's communication unlock this? This is a big shift from how a lot of us were raised to think about dogs. 

Alexis Devine: So here's a thing that I think is pretty magical about these systems, the button systems, right? So there's this study happening at the Comparative Cognition Lab. It's run by Federico Rossano, who's really interested in exploring if what is happening here is language-adjacent, right?

And I think that's so important to explore. There have been, dozens of prior animal language studies that, have been met with... Some of them have been mildly successful, some of them haven't been. [00:10:00] But for me, that's not the most interesting question. The most interesting question is what happens when we are conditioned to listen in a different way.

Because for me, these buttons, on their surface, are quite anthropocentric, right? Let's give a dog a way to communicate in English, in our language. And on, on its face, to me, that sounds shouldn't you just be listening to what a dog is saying? 'Cause they're communicating all the time to us- Yeah

right? They've got so much to say and we're just not listening. And I think people like me for everyone, but we'll start with a person like me, who had no prior knowledge of behavior, to hear a non-human say something in my language, it tricked... It flipped a switch in my brain. "Oh- ... this creature has something to say.

I need to start listening," right? So it gave me this notion that there was something cognitively going on that I hadn't been able to see prior to that- ... for whatever reason, because we, as humans, are [00:11:00] conditioned to believe that we are exceptional. Human exceptionalism- ...

so when humans hear cats, dogs, any other species, because now the technology is also being adopted by zoos to facilitate enrichment.

Yeah. When humans hear non-humans say something in English, it tricks us into believing that they have something to say. We start listening in a different way. We start paying attention in a different way. And once we believe that this cognitive capacity, this emotional capacity exists- ... we cannot live with them in the same way that we once were.

They're captive animals. We can't live with- Yeah ... captive animals that are so cognitively and emotionally complex in a way that is about is a- is about our superiority, our control. We have to start offering them more agency. We have to take their needs, their wants, their desires, their opinions into consideration, and I think that's the magic of the buttons.

It's not that they're speaking to us. It's that it teaches us how to listen in a different way. 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: I think that's beautiful. I- [00:12:00] I'm going back to human children again, and I don't mean anthropomorphism, like dogs aren't human children. But the listening piece, when I had my firstborn a decade and a half ago I learned about, they called it baby signing time or infant sign language.

And s- my in-laws and parents were like, "Oh, the kids- babies just cry." That wasn't my instinct anyway. But which is part of why I was drawn to this. But at just a few months old, signing for hunger, all done, tired, water, it made you realize the level of cognition happening and wants, and I hear that paralleled in what you're saying.

That I needed... A cry wasn't how I was going to understand it, and interpreting dog body language is something that takes study and is not intuitive. Like a yawn and a lip lick and whale [00:13:00] eye, those aren't instinctual to us. 

Alexis Devine: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's all about... And for me, this is particularly salient as an autistic person- for whom communication has always been confounding. Like I've- I- I feel like I've never really understood humans. I'm always like, "There's something going on beneath the surface that I totally don't get," and like- Yeah ... how am I gonna tease apart what this communication really means? And language alone doesn't suffice.

We have a poverty of language. There are not enough words, and we don't use them with enough accuracy to really communicate what we need to. And even when I can, when I have the capability to use language in a way that communicates beautifully what I'm feeling, what I'm thinking- ... it's gonna be interpreted in a million different ways by a million different people.

We see that on social media all the time. Oh, 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: yeah. 

Alexis Devine: This is about developing multi- multimodal communication. The more methodologies you have available to you through which to understand another being, whether it's another human, whether it's a [00:14:00] non-human, whether it's a book, whether it's another language, the more the better, right?

Yeah. If one tactic isn't working for me, I can pull from another tactic, yes. And I think going back to some of my prior professions this is why I- I chose them. I, and I didn't realize this until I started exploring communication and why this was so valuable to me. Ballroom dance- really beautiful nonverbal communication, right?

Yes. You can't use words, but you're communicating very complex movements emotional structures. It's just... it's beautiful. It's nonverbal. It's communication. Yeah. Art, I was a wearable art designer, and I was able to communicate so much through these pieces- ... of wearable art that I would then put on a person that would make them feel something, that would allow them to express something.

And so then th- this sentiment that I had is experienced through another person without having to say a single word. And then I can supplement that with words, sure, to build a bigger- ... picture. So this whole system is about developing as [00:15:00] many systems of communication as possible so that we can get the broadest, most holistic picture about what is going on to support our relationships.

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: I- it's just fascinating how you, throughout your life, have created these alternate ways of connecting and communicating. And then this one is making such a difference worldwide. If I dove right into the deep end with you and have so enjoyed following your work, but for those listeners and followers who are unfamiliar with what we're talking about, with buttons and Bunny, can you share a little bit about how we got started here?

Alexis Devine: Yeah. Bunny uses a system of buttons. They're recordable. On each button, I record a different word that is salient to her experience as a user of these buttons. And I use associative learning to help her understand, and use them to communicate with me her wants [00:16:00] and her needs. Now, this system is akin to AAC, which stands for augmentative and alternative communication, which was developed, I think, in the '70s, for use with non-speaking humans.

And in 2019, a cognitive scientist, Leo Trottier, and I partnered to create a canine specific device, which we then have called AIC, augmentative interspecies communication. And we use hex tiles that give a little bit more... They give context cues to our learners. So there's an up and a down.

There's six buttons. The tiles are different colors, so you can organize them. Our learners can compartmentalize. Each tile has a different type of word. Like, all of her people would go here, and all of- ... her places would go here, and her toys, her enrichment over here. So in that way, and by starting with very simple sort of one-to-one ratio words like play outside, treat, scritches, those sorts of things, you can really easily [00:17:00] build these concepts.

And once your learner knows that they have the ability to control outcomes- 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: in a 

Alexis Devine: world where they have very little choice control and agency- ... what we'll see is that the learners will go, anytime there's a new button added, the learner will go and they'll explore it right away. "What does this make the monkey do?"

It's really fun- Yeah, what does this one want? ... to watch the... Exactly. Yeah. To watch the light bulb go on. 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: Oh, I love it. When you first began experimenting with communication buttons, did you imagine it would grow into what it is today? 

Alexis Devine: No. I'm pretty tenacious, so I did have- ... the sense that I can do this.

I had no idea how or, you know- Yeah ... really no, no business believing so definitively that I could. But it was something that I definitely wanted to explore. Bringing Bunny home, I was like, "I wanna have this sort of Lassie-esque relationship." Yeah. She's my first dog. I wanna have this really deep communication and- and beautiful relationship. So I just gave her an outside button. I put it by the door, and I [00:18:00] would press the button any time we were going outside, and I would say the word outside, and we'd go outside. And then I'd be like, "Yay, we're outside now." We'd have a little outside party. And within a couple of weeks of her doing that she was standing by the door, I was sitting at the table and I was watching her out of the corner of my eye, and she was looking down at the button and up at me, and down and up again.

And then she lifted her paw and she smashed the button herself for the first time. And she looked up all proud, her ears flew out, and we went outside, and it was game on at that point. And then I began adding words quite rapidly. I added a play button, and I added n- names for some of her people, and she was very quick to explore every new button that went down.

And then I very quickly came to understand that we could use this to help her explore her triggers. ... 'Cause it wasn't until around sexual and social maturity that I started noticing or understanding even what reactivity is. And so she was, I was able to start labeling some of the triggers that would cause her anxiety.

And then- ... she could use [00:19:00] those before she had a reaction to something to get that co-regulation from me, and that bit has been really powerful. 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: I love it. A lot of people have started learning how to use bells on the back door. There's a doorbell, which is essentially what you're describing, and...

Or your dog just scratching at the back door as their way to communicate, and that shows Bunny is exceptional, but this isn't only exclusive to Bunny. If your dog has figured that out at the back door, this system could work for your dog. 

Alexis Devine: Absolutely. 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: Yes. 

Alexis Devine: Yeah. It, this is, any dog is capable of this.

The key is to find the things that are salient to the individual's experience, right? Not all learners are gonna wanna talk about birds. Not all learners are going to want to talk about their feelings. Just humans- Yeah ... we have different interests, different things that motivate us.

And I think it's important [00:20:00] to remember too, that we're not, this isn't a system that replaces body language at all. As you were just mentioning, a dog can scratch at a door. Let them out. Yeah. They don't have to press a button if they're- Look they're telling you that they wanna go outside.

If they're barking at the, just let 'em out. We don't have to require them to press an outside button. But I think having some of those foundational words allows you to build upon that so that we can glean things about the individuals that maybe we couldn't without buttons. For example, one of the most powerful things that we're seeing within the community is learners' ability to self-advocate when they're in pain.

Yeah. Which is really powerful. Dogs saying, "Leg ouch," and then they go to the vet and they have an ACL tear. How would we have known this? Or, Bunny said "Help, Matt help, paw, ouch," and there was a thorn stuck between her toes- Yeah ... that I was able to get. She's "Otter smell, ear, ouch," told me when Otter has had an ear infection.

Oh. Cats r- cat [00:21:00] saying, "Potty, ouch." Then they go to the vet and they have a bladder infection. Dozens of learners that are requesting medicine, right? So now- ... what could be a very stressful experience like, oh, we've gotta give this cat or dog their medicine every morning, and maybe it's quite stressful for them.

They don't want it. They don't know what's happening. Now they can request it themselves. It's taking some of the anxiety away- ... from that procedure. So it's been really powerful in terms of self-advocacy for health, and also for cooperative and collaborative care. 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: That's beautiful because so many of our dogs are stoic, and unless there's some loose stool, or they're not eating as much and there's a limp, it can be really difficult to tell that something's wrong.

Yeah. And to 

give that language to say that s- there's pain or infection in a fellow dog is just, what a gift. 

Alexis Devine: Yeah. Yeah. I heard the other day from one community member whose [00:22:00] dog predicts the seizures of another dog in the household. 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: That's- It's incredible. Yes. Yeah. On a lighter note, is there anything Bunny has said with the buttons or communication that made you laugh out loud?

Alexis Devine: Yeah, she went through a phase where she consistently would call people out for pooping. Yeah. And this is right around when we had added some past tense buttons, so she would say, "Dad went poop." Or, "Dad smell poop now." Or, we'd have friends over at the house. There were a lot of television crews coming down, too, that would use the bathroom.

She would call- Yeah ... them out. She would say, "Stranger poop." So that was fun. 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: She's like, "You don't, you don't have the nose that I do." Exactly. "Somebody handle this." And 

Alexis Devine: never did it to me, which is nice. So that was- Aw ... it was very fun. It 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: wasn't 

Alexis Devine: fun for anyone else in the household. But yeah, that was hilarious, and she'll she... Our little dog, Tenrec, he's about 12 pounds. He's [00:23:00] got these big ears. Yeah. And she'll call him a cat, which is pretty funny. And she'll do that thing when dogs laugh, where they do this pant, where it's like. She'll call him a cat and then she'll laugh, right? And- ... that's, she's done that consistently.

It's not been a one-off at all. So it's, it seems like she maybe is making jokes. Hard to say for sure, but, I love it. I love it ... I would say that it seems like a lot of learners within the community seem to have senses of humor. 

Corinne Gearhart- The Doodle Pro: I it's like she, she's saying to your little pup, "You call yourself a dog?"

Yeah. Exactly.