Most dog owners know canines are not exactly fans of vacuum cleaners. In a YouTube video titled, “Dog Turns off Roomba,” a red lab takes the canine vs. vacuum battle to another level, repeatedly turning off her owner’s Roomba after a few minutes of the vacuum’s operation. Apparently, this dog has learned how to push the “off” button with its nose. The video has garnered a great deal of attention, receiving nearly 300,000 views to date.
Shasta isn’t the only dog who can operate a Roomba, though. Several videos on YouTube show dogs operating Roomba vacuum cleaners, turning them on or off. In the video below, this doggy cleans up for its owners while they’re away from the house, turning the Roomba on.
How does Fido know how to operate the vacuum? Here’s a professor’s take: “Using only family pets, which were not specifically trained to understand language and gestures, I came to the conclusion that dogs had the mental ability roughly equivalent to a human two-year-old,” said professor Stanley Coren in a 2011 Psychology Today article. “Further work led me to believe that the most intelligent dogs might have the mental abilities similar to a human two-and-a-half-year-old child.”
And scientists at the University of Vienna and Oxford collaborated on a 2010 study which found that, like children, dogs learn by watching their masters. “The findings confirm what many owners and people involved with dogs have known for years. A dog’s behavior is influenced much like that of a child; through socialization, learning right from wrong and adopting similar patterns of behavior,” Caroline Kisko, from The Kennel Club told the Telegraph.
It’s been known for some time that dogs have a fair amount of intelligence and can complete some human tasks. And operating Roomba vacuum cleaners has now been added to the list.
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