At home with bowlingual

April 25, 2003 —

Like most dog owners, Keiko Egawa thought she understood her dog pretty well.

When Harry, a 7 year-old, 37-kilogram Alaskan Malamute barked, growled or whimpered, Egawa could usually figure out what he wanted or was trying to communicate to her but she was never completely sure. So last year when Takara Co. Ltd. began offering a device that supposedly interprets what a dog is saying, she jumped at the chance to try it.

She was not alone. More than 300,000 people in Japan have bought the

IDG News Service