Hello, Curious Minds. I'm Dr. Samantha Amin and this is Curiosity Weekly from Discovery.

In the aftermath of the devastating L.A. fires, highly trained sniffer dogs are proving to be invaluable,

assisting search and rescue teams with their incredible sense of smell.

Those same amazing smelling skills were also honed during the pandemic

when dogs were trained to identify COVID in people.

But it isn't just their incredible sense of smell that's helpful.

Their adaptability, loyalty, physical and emotional support

just goes to show how important they really are to everyone's welfare.

They are trained to do specific tasks. I kind of think of them as like the super geniuses of the service dogs.

That was Dr. Hoy-Gurlock and she'll be with me later to talk about human-animal interactions.

So whether or not you love dogs in real

life, even if that means your favorite dog can only be found on social media pressing buttons to talk,

which, by the way, we're going to get into in less than 20 seconds. This week, our curiosity

jumps to the science and culture of dogs. They're a person's best friend after all.

Walk. and culture of dogs. They're a person's best friend after all. Walk, walk, walk, walk, outside.

Imagine you could talk with your pet?

I know, I know, you probably already think you can,

but, I mean, like, really talk to them.

In the long-running debate on how dogs can speak with humans, new research from December says that they can, at least in two word

combos using buttons. Let's get into it. The team from the University of California, San Diego,

were inspired by people posting videos training

their dogs on soundboards. They have a bunch of dog-friendly buttons that recite a pre-recorded

...