Forming the Dog Internet

Over the past decade, many systems have been developed for humans to remotely connect to their pets at home. Yet little attention has been paid to how animals can control such systems and what the implications are of animals using internet systems. This paper explores the creation of a video call device to allow a dog to remotely call their human, giving the animal control and agency over technology in their home. After building and prototyping a novel interaction method over several weeks and iterations, we test our system with a dog and a human. Analysing our experience and data, we reflect on power relations, how to quantify an animal's user experience and what interactive internet systems look like with animal users. This paper builds upon Human-Computer Interaction methods for unconventional users, uncovering key questions that advance the creation of animal-to-human interfaces and animal internet devices.

[1]  Maarten H. Lamers,et al.  Interactive Digital Gameplay Can Lower Stress Hormone Levels in Home Alone Dogs - A Case for Animal Welfare Informatics , 2015, ICEC.

[2]  C. Mancini,et al.  Understanding Dogs' Engagement with Interactive Games: Interaction Style, Behaviour and Personality , 2020, ACI.

[3]  Blaine A. Price,et al.  Understanding the Interaction Between Animals and Wearables: The Wearer Experience of Cats , 2020, Conference on Designing Interactive Systems.

[4]  Clara Mancini,et al.  The Emerging Nature of Participation in Multispecies Interaction Design , 2018, Conference on Designing Interactive Systems.

[5]  Charlotte Robinson,et al.  Canine Co-design: Investigating Buttons as an Input Modality for Dogs , 2020, Conference on Designing Interactive Systems.

[6]  Antti Vehkaoja,et al.  Happy dogs and happy owners: using dog activity monitoring technology in everyday life , 2018, ACI.

[7]  S. Marshall-Pescini,et al.  Dogs' Social Referencing towards Owners and Strangers , 2012, PloS one.

[8]  F. Range,et al.  Social learning from humans or conspecifics: differences and similarities between wolves and dogs , 2013, Front. Psychol..

[9]  Steve North,et al.  Hey, where's my hay?: design fictions in horse-computer interaction , 2017, ACI.

[10]  Frank Vetere,et al.  Co-Designing with Orangutans: Enhancing the Design of Enrichment for Animals , 2020, Conference on Designing Interactive Systems.

[11]  David Roberts,et al.  Canine-Centered Computing , 2017, Found. Trends Hum. Comput. Interact..

[12]  Yoram Chisik,et al.  P for Politics D for Dialogue: Reflections on Participatory Design with Children and Animals , 2019, ACI.

[13]  Clara Mancini,et al.  Sensing the shape of canine responses to cancer , 2015, Advances in Computer Entertainment.

[14]  Clara Mancini,et al.  User centered design approaches to measuring canine behavior: tail wagging as a measure of user experience , 2018, ACI.

[15]  Peter Bennett,et al.  Gorilla game lab: exploring modularity, tangibility and playful engagement in cognitive enrichment design , 2018, ACI.

[16]  Helen Sharp,et al.  Designing Interactive Toys for Elephants , 2015, CHI PLAY.

[17]  Carman Neustaedter,et al.  Exploring pet video chat: the remote awareness and interaction needs of families with dogs and cats , 2013, CSCW '13.

[18]  Janet C. Read,et al.  Who Is Really In The Center Of Dog Computer Design? , 2014, ACE '14 Workshops.

[19]  Hill Hiroki Kobayashi,et al.  Playful rocksalt system: animal-computer interaction design in wild environments , 2015, Advances in Computer Entertainment.

[20]  Clara Mancini,et al.  Animal-computer interaction (ACI): changing perspective on HCI, participation and sustainability , 2013, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[21]  Janet C. Read,et al.  Seven Years after the Manifesto: Literature Review and Research Directions for Technologies in Animal Computer Interaction , 2018, Multimodal Technol. Interact..

[22]  Adrian David Cheok,et al.  A mobile pet wearable computer and mixed reality system for human–poultry interaction through the internet , 2006, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.

[23]  Martin Kaltenbrunner,et al.  Animals Make Music: A Look at Non-Human Musical Expression , 2018, Multimodal Technologies and Interaction.

[24]  Kimberly M. Christopherson.  The positive and negative implications of anonymity in Internet social interactions: "On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're a Dog" , 2007, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[25]  Janet C. Read,et al.  A dog centred approach to the analysis of dogs' interactions with media on TV screens , 2017, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[26]  Janet C. Read,et al.  DoggyVision: Examining how dogs (Canis familiaris) interact with media using a dog-driven proximity tracker device. , 2018, Animal Behavior and Cognition.

[27]  Alexandre Pongrácz Rossi,et al.  A dog using skype , 2016, ACI.

[28]  Ida Kathrine Hammeleff Jørgensen,et al.  Designing for intuitive use for non-human users , 2015, Advances in Computer Entertainment.

[29]  Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas,et al.  Music for Monkeys: Building Methods to Design with White-Faced Sakis for Animal-Driven Audio Enrichment Devices , 2020, Animals : an open access journal from MDPI.

[30]  H. Wirman.  Games for/with strangers - captive orangutan (Pongo Pygmaeus) touch screen play , 2014 .

[31]  Gregory D. Abowd,et al.  Training collar-sensed gestures for canine communication , 2016, ACI.

[32]  Kaisa Väänänen,et al.  The secret life of my dog: design and evaluation of paw tracker concept , 2011, Mobile HCI.

[33]  H. Root-Gutteridge,et al.  Is Nothing Better Than Something?: A Preliminary Investigation into Disembodied Stimuli for Home Alone Dogs , 2020, ACI.

[34]  L. Huber,et al.  Neural Responses of Pet Dogs Witnessing Their Caregiver’s Positive Interactions with a Conspecific: An fMRI Study , 2021, Cerebral cortex communications.

[35]  Thad Starner,et al.  Canine computer interaction: towards designing a touchscreen interface for working dogs , 2016, ACI.

[36]  Eric P.S. Baumer,et al.  Usees , 2015, CHI.

[37]  Janet C. Read,et al.  Giving ideas an equal chance: inclusion and representation in participatory design with children , 2014, IDC.

[38]  R. Christley,et al.  “More Attention than Usual”: A Thematic Analysis of Dog Ownership Experiences in the UK during the First COVID-19 Lockdown , 2021, Animals : an open access journal from MDPI.

[39]  Mark Gaved,et al.  Maker Movements, Do-It-Yourself Cultures and Participatory Design: Implications for HCI Research , 2018, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[40]  Ben Kirman,et al.  Power, participation, and the dog internet , 2016, Interactions.

[41]  Thad Starner,et al.  A method to evaluate haptic interfaces for working dogs , 2017, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[42]  Stefano Gualeni,et al.  Becoming with: towards the inclusion of animals as participants in design processes , 2016, ACI.

[43]  Ann Morrison,et al.  The impact of training approaches on experimental setup and design of wearable vibrotactiles for hunting dogs , 2016, ACI.

[44]  Helen Sharp,et al.  More Than Human Aesthetics: Interactive Enrichment for Elephants , 2020, Conference on Designing Interactive Systems.

[45]  Ludwig Huber,et al.  Dogs Can Discriminate Emotional Expressions of Human Faces , 2015, Current Biology.

[46]  Oskar Juhlin,et al.  Theorizing animal-computer interaction as machinations , 2017, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[47]  Mikael Evander,et al.  An echolocation visualization and interface system for dolphin research. , 2008, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[48]  Clara Mancini,et al.  Canine-centered interface design: supporting the work of diabetes alert dogs , 2014, CHI.