Researchers Developing Tech to Allow Dogs to Call 911 in Emergencies

Researchers are woking to develop technology to allow dogs to call 911 during an emergency by using items such as a “dog-friendly” touchscreen display.

Melody Jackson, director of the animal-computer interaction lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology, first thought of the idea after her grandmother suffered from a fall.

“She had to wait for her neighbor to get home from work to get up,” Jackson explained to CNN. “The family obviously was terrified, so we bought her one of those necklaces, those alert necklaces… Well, she didn’t like wearing it.”

The incident, which happened around twenty years ago, stuck in Jackson’s mind and prompted her to research other ways for people to seek help.

“From high-tech wearable vests for dogs to a dog-friendly touchscreen that works like a telephone, Jackson and her colleagues at Georgia Tech are developing and testing new ways for canines to communicate with humans during a medical emergency,” reported CNN. “Since last year, when CNN previously interviewed Jackson and her team, they have tested a touchscreen that dogs can use to call or text. Dogs could be trained to activate a device if their owner falls or if they hear a verbal cue telling them to ‘get help,’ said Jackson, who founded the FIDO project at Georgia Tech to research ways to improve communication between dogs and humans.”

“The dog could go over to a touchscreen and touch a series of icons on the touchscreen and call 911 with your location,” claimed Jackson. “We think that, literally, this could change lives, make lives so much better, and be a life-saver.”

“We’re working on, how do we make these more robust? How do you make the batteries last longer? How do you make this not false-positive, which means accidentally activate,” she concluded. “These dogs love this work. The bond between a person and a service dog is unlike any other… We are just so proud that we can actually work in this area and hopefully create some of these technologies to keep that going.”

Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.