Invented in 2002, the canine translation device has yet to meet with great success.

Dr. Matsumi Suzuki, President of Japan Acoustic Lab, and Dr. Norio Kogure, Executive Director, Kogure Veterinary Hospital, “invented” a dog-to-human language translation tool in 2002. And, yes, you may have noticed that pet shop shelves are not overflowing with the machine.

Called the “Bow-Lingual” — and I do give them credit for a very clever name — the two-piece set consists of a remote microphone for the dog’s collar, and a handset complete with an LCD screen for the proud master.

How does this (supposedly) work? Doggy’s utterances are transmitted to a handset, then “interpreted” depending on the pooch’s emotional state: “happy, sad, on guard, frustrated, needy, or assertive.” Once the emotion is identified, the Bow-Lingual suggests a short phrase to “translate” the bark or growl into human language — for example, if the dog sounds “aggressive,” the screen might display the sentence “I’m dominant.”

The invention caused a lot of buzz at the time, even in the legitimate press, as can be witnessed by the one-page site, dogtranslator.com. As we can see in 2010, though, the machine was mainly a gimmick and has not been developed further. So “English to Canine” is not a language pair that E-ging will offer soon as it is doubtful that there is really a niche (French for “doghouse”) for this service!