Man has always had trouble understanding exactly what his best friend is trying to say.

But a new gadget released in Japan is trying to reduce the lingual divide between dog and its owner.

Creatively called “Bow-lingual”, the hand-held electronic device claims to gauge a dog’s mood by listening to its bark.

Released by Takara Co Ltd, Japan’s third-largest toy maker, the invention uses a microphone on the dog’s collar to record the bark.

An infra-red voice print is then beamed to the owners ‘emotion pager’ — a small liquid crystal display that shows how the dog feels

Gauging six emotions, the “Bow-lingual” uses 200 words to relay to the owner the dog’s feeling together with the relevant pictures.

“Happy”, “fun”, “annoyed” and “frustrated” are just a few of the options.

Curious owners can even get a description of the dog’s emotions during the day by using the “Dog diary” mode.