Puppy Parker Posey pressing on a button. Gif: Linh Ta/Axios
Beaverdale’s Puppy Parker Posey has been described by the New York Times as a “genius” dog, thanks to her ability to “speak” by using more than 100 buttons that verbalize everything from “outside” to “ouch.”
Why it matters: Owner Sascha Crasnow says that while dogs have evolved to live alongside humans, people haven’t yet learned to meet them halfway. The buttons, popularized on TikTok, are changing that, she says.
How it started: In January 2021, at the height of the pandemic, Crasnow was finishing her doctoral degree in Michigan when her nearly 17-year-old dog died.
- Isolated and grieving, she adopted beagle mix Parker from an animal rescue in Kalamazoo, after the dog had been found in a cardboard box in Kentucky. She named her after the actress Parker Posey.
- Crasnow’s stepdad sent her a TikTok of Bunny, a dog who communicated by pressing buttons. Then she read “How Stella Learned to Talk,” a book by a speech-language pathologist who used recordable buttons to help her dog communicate.
The book reframed how she understood Parker, Crasnow tells Axios. Parker had been ringing a bell on the door constantly, and Crasnow assumed she always wanted to go outside. She realized Parker was trying to communicate different things, but only had one tool to do it…