DE102010016941B4 - Intelligence toy for animals - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to an intelligence toy for animals, in particular dogs, with an operating module (1), comprising a keyboard (3) comprising at least three keys and a signal generating module (2) operatively connected to the operating module (1). Furthermore, the invention relates to a method for the dressage of animals, in particular dogs, using the Intelligentzspielzeugs invention. In order to enable a continuous and far-reaching adaptation of the difficulty level of the intelligence toy to the mental abilities of the respective animal and to achieve an optimal dressage effect, the invention proposes that the signal generation module (2) generates tones of a scale, each key (4). exactly one, in the signal generation module (2) is assigned to be generated sound and the keys (4) by at least one adaptation of key shape, distance, color, material, height or surface texture to the motor and sensory abilities of the animal, in particular Dog, are adjusted.

Description

The present invention relates to an intelligence toy for animals, in particular dogs, having an operating module, comprising a keyboard comprising at least three keys and a signal generating module operatively connected to the operating module. Furthermore, the invention relates to a method for the dressage of animals, in particular dogs, using the Intelligentzspielzeugs invention.

Intelligence toys for animals are mostly based on the reward principle. When a given task is solved by the animal, a reward of the animal takes place, usually in the form of food. Such intelligence toys for animals are state of the art.

In the publication DE 20 2008 009 902 U1 is such an intelligence toy described, with the help of small food pieces are released by intelligent action of the dog. It is provided that the device consists of a box-shaped body in which a certain number of shafts is located. One or more of these manholes include food that is made accessible to the dog by recognizing an optical sign and pressing a corresponding button. It is disadvantageous that the difficulty level can be adapted to the rapidly advancing mental development of the dog only to a limited extent or not at all by the highly limited number of keys.

From the DE 10 2007 026 818 A1 a noise-generating device for dressing dogs is known, which triggers a humming sound by pressing a button on the dog side, which is honored by the dog handler with a reward. Since the device is located laterally at waist level on the handler and the dog will always endeavor to trigger a rewarding buzzer, the dog is trained to run with his head up beside the handler. Again, an adjustment of the difficulty level is not possible. This disadvantage means that the interest of the dog flattened after a short time.

Since the mental abilities of animals, especially dogs, are individually different, and also their improvement varies greatly by the use of intelligence toys, a large variability in the adjustable difficulty level is required.

On the other hand, intelligence-promoting toys for human children, such as in the GB 317 360 A described, generally known. The named keyboard instrument produces a soundtrack modeled on an animal sound when a key is pressed and at the same time displays an image of the associated animal. However, it is unsuitable for use as an intelligence toy for animals, especially dogs, because the key manipulation necessary to interact with the instrument is optimized for human anatomy and sensory perception.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an intelligence toy for animals, especially dogs, which allows a steady and far-reaching adaptation of the difficulty level to the mental abilities of the respective animal.

To solve this problem, the invention proposes that the signal generation module tones a scale is generating, each key is assigned to a sound to be generated in the signal generation module and the keys by at least one adaptation of key shape, distance, color, material, height or surface quality to the motor and sensory abilities of the animal, especially dog, are adjusted. With great advantage, the signal generation module generates acoustic signals, in particular tones, since a large part of the intelligence toy-handling species, especially dogs, have a very good ear and are thus very sensitive to acoustic feedback regarding their interaction with the intelligence toy. Furthermore, the bijective assignment of the tones to the keys provided is to be regarded as very advantageous since the signal generation module thus operates completely deterministically and the animal is not unsettled by the generation of random tones in its learning process. Since the producible tones are elements of a scale, in particular a pentatonic, hexatonic, heptatonic, octatonic or chromatic scale, it is very advantageously possible to play tunes by stringing together tones. This widens the range of difficulty provided by the intelligence toy to infinity. The adaptation of the keyboard with regard to key shape, distance, color, material, height or surface quality to the motor and sensory abilities of the animal proves to be particularly expedient and usually unavoidable since they can deviate strongly from the human motor and sensory abilities , But standard keyboards are designed for use by people.

In order to improve operation of the intelligence toy by animals is provided with great advantage according to the invention that the keys along a tilting axis are displaceable and lockable in mutually variable distance and / or jointly in their height or individually adjustable. In this way, the invention allows the ergonomic adaptation of the intelligence toy to the anatomy of the serving animal. This is individually different and varies very widely across different classes. Even within a family, for example, the dogs, there are significant differences in paw size or shoulder height. In addition, according to the invention, it is considered that the operation of the intelligence toy can be carried out by different body parts depending on the species, for example by the paws in dogs and cats, by the snout in dogs or by the beak in birds.

It proves particularly advantageous according to the invention that the keys each have a touch surface which is concavely curved and / or has a profiling and / or illumination. By this adaptation of the tactile surfaces over those of a standard piano keyboard, the probability of slipping of the paw, especially dog paw, is reduced during the keystroke, as the dog paw can be placed safely in the trained Kuhle and the profiling a better gearing between dog paw pads and key is achieved , The illumination delineates the geometric extension of the key accurately and clearly perceptible to the dog, which increases the accuracy of aiming when the key is hit. Overall, the operation of the intelligence toy for the animal is facilitated.

Furthermore, the invention provides that the tactile surfaces have a width between 2 cm and 8 cm, in particular between 0.75 and 1.0 times a dog paw width, and / or with a fixed distance between 2 cm and 10 cm from each other are spaced. The width of the paw width, in particular dog paw width, adapted to touch surface width and in particular the spatial spacing of the touch surfaces prevented with great advantage that accidentally two or more keys are posted simultaneously. The intended minimum palette width of 2 cm proves to be advantageous for the operation of the keys by small paws, but also by beaks. In addition, the clear spatial separation of the keys promotes the formation of clear key-tone associations and thus improves the Dressurergebnis.

In addition, it proves to be particularly advantageous that the keys have a contrasting color to a background color of the operating module. The different colored coloring of the keyboard contributes to an improved visual perception of the individual keys. This is particularly important in dogs, as they are generally farsighted and at close range, ie at a distance between eye and button less than 0.5 m, small structures, such as buttons, which must necessarily be located within reach of the forelegs, insufficient can localize.

In order to be able to adapt the level of difficulty of the intelligence toy to the growing mental capabilities of the serving animal over a wide range, it is provided with great advantage according to the invention that the operating module has eight, preferably 13, in particular 25 keys, so that one octave of whole tones, one or two octaves of a chromatic scale are playable. By providing many buttons compared to known animal intelligence toys, the number of sounds that can be generated increases in direct proportion, implying a veritable range of adjustable difficulty levels. Since not only single tones are regarded as a solution of the game, but also and in particular the correct sequence of tones to tunes or entire pieces of music, the level of difficulty of the intelligence toy according to the invention can be increased to infinity. For the faithful reproduction of common melodies or pieces of music, however, it requires a scale of at least two octaves equal steps, per octave heptatonic structure, which is very advantageously provided by the invention.

Due to the fact that an individual adaptation of the keyboard requires a certain amount of knowledge about the anatomy of the animal and that by a possible rejection of the intelligence toy on the part of the animal this is used only sporadically, according to the invention is considered, a simple inflexible standard variant of the intelligence toy which is characterized in that the operating module is a commercially available bass pedal. Due to the lack of adaptation options, no individual settings are necessary before use and thus any types of ergonomically questionable adjustments are excluded.

Finally, it proves to be very advantageous that the inventive intelligence toy has a learning module. Both in the initial learning phase of the key-tone assignment and later to check the correctness of the order of the keystrokes this add-on module simplifies the handling of the intelligence toy for animal and owner. In an advantageous embodiment of the invention, the learning module has illuminated control switches and / or a digital display unit and / or a digital memory unit for storing songs and / or a programming function for expanding the prepared repertoire of songs. It is also contemplated that the digital display the Displays the course of the selected song similar to a music book.

Furthermore, the invention relates to a method for the dressage of animals, in particular dogs, using an intelligence toy as described.

A standard method in the dressage of animals is the repetition method. This is well known. In the case of the described intelligence toy according to the invention, this means that the animal must generate many times the generated sounds by striking the corresponding keys in order to generate and subsequently automate the key-tone association. Generating associations for all provided buttons requires an incentive for the animal to use all provided buttons. After the learning phase building up the associations, the specification of the order of the keys to be operated is also desirable, since thus the difficulty level in the application of the intelligence toy can be increased almost arbitrarily and the animal to be trained mentally challenged and thereby motivated.

Therefore, the invention has the further object to provide a method which provokes the attack of a predetermined key and thus directs the animal in his actions.

• a) Signalisieren eines zu spielenden Tones,
• b) Abgleichen einer Benutzerinteraktion mit der zu bedienenden Taste,
• c) Übermitteln einer Information zur Tonerzeugung an das Signalerzeugungsmodul bei positivem Abgleich in Schritt b).

In order to achieve this object, the invention proposes that the learning module allows the following steps to be repeated as often as desired:

• a) signaling a sound to be played,
• b) matching a user interaction with the button to be operated,
• c) transmitting an information for tone generation to the signal generation module with a positive balance in step b).

With great advantage, the inventive method allows not only the specification of the sound to be played by visual signaling of the corresponding key by means of key illumination or by the display of the note to be played on a display of the learning module, but also the control of compliance with the specification by the comparison of pressed button against the given. As long as the preset button is not operated, there is no flow of information to the signal generation module and no sound is heard. According to the invention, a sound is generated only when the predetermined key striking, which corresponds due to the bijective key-tone assignment by definition, the predetermined, to be played sound. This suppresses a lack of sound and allows a clear separation between positive and negative user interaction. This greatly simplifies the dressage of the animal.

The invention will be described by way of example in a preferred embodiment with reference to a drawing, wherein further advantageous details are shown in the figures of the drawing.

The figures of the drawing show in detail:

1 a schematic representation of the intelligence toy according to the invention for animals with a keyboard of buttons and

2 a schematic representation of the intelligence toy according to the invention for animals with a keyboard of buttons.

Again 1 can be removed, the intelligence toy according to the invention for animals, especially dogs, an operating module 1 with a keyboard 3 , one with the operating module 1 via an active compound 7 connected signal generation module 2 and one with the operating module 1 via an active compound 7 connected learning module 6 on. The active compound 7 based on electronic data transmission. All components of the intelligence toy are in a dirt and moisture resistant housing 8th integrated, which has a great advantage of a cavity for filling with sand or water and thus serves to increase the stability of the intelligence toy, which improves its operability especially for heavy and / or impetuous animals, but does not increase the transport weight. The signal generation module 2 allows the generation of tones of a scale, in this case a heptatonic scale. For tone generation, steel strings are vibrated mechanically via hammers and these resonantly amplified or used from children's musical instruments or toys known, inexpensive electronic components. In addition, an interface to external tone generators, in particular a digital interface for musical instruments (MIDI), is provided. The keyboard 3 consists of 13 buttons 4 where each key 4 exactly one, in the signal generation module 2 associated with the sound to be generated. In the 1 pictured keyboard 3 includes the acoustic bandwidth of one octave. The button's 4 differ from those of a standard human keyboard by at least one adaptation of key shape, pitch, color, material, height, or surface finish. These modifications to customize the keyboard 3 The motor and sensory abilities of the animal, in particular the dog, considerably improve the operability. The button's 4 consist of non-toxic, easy to clean plastic and have a spoon-like outline. This is a space-saving arrangement of multiple buttons 4 allows side by side, which reduces the otherwise large width of the keyboard and keeps short the way to be traveled by the serving animal. To improve the optical differentiability for generally farsighted dogs are the keys 4 with great advantage yellow colored against the blue background keyboard background of the operating module 1 , Full-tone keys and half-tone keys differ in color and operating height. In order to avoid accidental striking of the adjacent Ganztontasten in the operation of the half-tone keys, the latter are slightly higher arranged to the former. The arrangement of the buttons 4 is characterized by a variably adjustable, lockable distance and an adaptable to the size or height of the playing animal, relative to the ground keyboard height. The touch surfaces 5 the keys 4 are concave, 5 cm wide, 3 cm apart and have a profiling in the form of knobs or grooves made of soft plastic or rubber and lighting by means of LEDs.

2 shows a further advantageous embodiment of the intelligence toy according to the invention. This training differs from that in 1 intelligence toy described only by the design of the outer shape of the keys 4 , The button's 4 are designed as buttons and are characterized by simple design and interchangeability, cost-effective production and mechanical robustness.

For the training of animals, especially dogs, the learning module provided with the intelligence toy according to the invention is used 6 used. After using a digital display to play the note to be played according to programming and the corresponding button 5 was illuminated, the learning module awaits 6 the user interaction of the animal. After the interaction, the learning module is the same 6 the actual value with the target value to be processed and, if the adjustment is positive, sends information for generating a tone to the signal generation module 2 further. At the same time, the next note to be played is shown in the display, the corresponding touch area 5 illuminated and the illumination of the touch surface 5 the button to be pressed previously 4 disabled. Negative matching does not provide information regarding tone generation to the signal generation module 2 transmitted, the keypad illumination remains active and the learning module 6 expects a new user interaction. These steps can be repeated as often as you like. One in the learning module 6 included storage medium allows the deposit of permanently programmed and freely programmable melodies and songs. Thus, the difficulty level of the intelligence toy is adaptable to the growing mental abilities of the serving animal over a wide range.

LIST OF REFERENCE NUMBERS

1

adjustment module

2

Signal generation module

3

keyboard

4

button

5

touch surface

6

learning module

7

operatively connected

8th

casing

Claims (9)

Intelligence toy for animals, in particular dogs, with an operating module ( 1 ), comprising a keyboard ( 3 ) from at least three buttons ( 4 ) and one with the operating module ( 1 ) Actively connected signal generation module ( 2 ), characterized in that the signal generation module ( 2 ) Generating tones of a scale, each key ( 4 ) exactly, in the signal generation module ( 2 ) is associated with the sound to be generated and the keys ( 4 ) are adapted to the motor and sensory capabilities of the animal, especially the dog, by at least one adaptation of key shape, pitch, color, material, height or surface texture. Intelligence toy according to claim 1, characterized in that the keys ( 4 ) are displaceable along a tilting axis and lockable in mutually variable spacing and / or in height together or individually adjustable. Intelligence toy according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the keys ( 4 ) one touch surface each ( 5 ), which is concave and / or has a profiling and / or illumination. Intelligence toy according to claim 1, 2 or 3, characterized in that the tactile surfaces ( 5 ) have a width between 2 cm and 8 cm, in particular between 0.75 and 1.0 times a dog paw width, and / or are spaced apart at a fixed distance of between 2 cm and 10 cm. Intelligence toy according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the keys ( 4 ) a contrasting color to a background color of the operating module ( 1 ) exhibit. Intelligence toy according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the operating module ( 1 ) eight, preferably 13, in particular 25 keys ( 4 ), so that one octave out Whole tones, one or two octaves of a chromatic scale are playable. Intelligence toy according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the operating module ( 1 ) is a standard bass pedal. Intelligence toy according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it is a learning module ( 6 ) having. Method for the training of animals, in particular dogs, using an intelligence toy according to one of claims 1 to 8, characterized in that the learning module ( 6 ) allows the following steps to be repeated as often as desired: a) signaling a sound to be played, b) matching a user interaction with the key to be operated ( 5 c) transmitting tone generation information to the signal generation module ( 2 ) with positive comparison in step b).

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