Do you take yours up? Put them somewhere safe?

I have ours on a wooden cutting board but it roatates sometimes making it more confusing.

I know some pets will use a seemingly random combination of words to express something they want that they might not have the buttons for yet.

Like my cat for example would press "cat nip" a lot usually in conjunction with "play". It took me a minute to realize she didn't want loose catnip to roll in and play, she wanted her cat nip filled toys to play with.

Her newest combo is "cuddle, play" and we can't figure that one out as she doesn't like to play wrestle.

I know that Fluent Pet has a word combo glossary but I wanted to get some opinions/hear what combos you had to figure out.

Cat tax obviously

I’m trying to find a video I saw a few months back with a cat pretty advanced in using their buttons. It utilized a combination of something like “Inside” + “Rain” + “Bathroom” ON CAMERA and you can see the owner walk to the bathroom trying to figure out what they meant, and it turns out water was leaking from the ceiling?

I tried using various search terms to track the video down, but no luck. I hoped that it might ring a bell for one of you since I assume lots of folks that have been at this longer might recognize the scenario.

Today is the day my 7mo kitten intentionally used her first button!! So I’m trying to show my sister examples of how remarkably smart cats use buttons in unexpected but accurate ways.

Edit: thanks u/robind21283, they provided a link to it! https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8857D7u/

I would like to record Bruni pushing her buttons. My goal is to make a YT channel akin to BilliSpeaks. For that, I would like to buy some kind of camera system - something that is easy to use and that will reliably record when she enters the frame, will record sound, and will work in dim light. Do you have any recommendations?

I’m flying tomorrow and I don’t know whether to take the buttons in my carry on or if I have to check them in. Anyone travel with the buttons and could share?

I'm so proud of my little girl, I have to share 🖤

The question was:

WAS ANGEL (gesturing towards drawer) WAS (She doesn't have a button for "drawer")

We are using/developing our own syntax out of necessity. I'm from Germany, so we have to come up with something because words on buttons don't bend like they'd need to in German - also it's hard to come by suitable buttons, so we're trying to be economic and use words for multiple purposes. "Was" ("what"), in our system, is a question word when in front (which one depends on context), and a question marker when in the back. I have modeled pressing it twice in a sentence in the past, but not often.

Let me explain what her question meant:

(Question word) STICK TOY (drawer) (question mark) = Where stick toy? In the drawer?

The stick toy used to be in the drawer and Bruni used to gesture towards it if she wanted it, but my bf took it out of the drawer recently (or rather, didn't put it back in after the cats had taken it away by themselves to play with it) 🤯

What's best for a cat to learn and remember? Pictures on the buttons or words on the buttons? Or does it make no difference at all?

I have the fluent pet small buttons and the big picture stickers don't sit flat on the rounded tops. I've been using lable maker stickers instead. The cat only has a few buttons right now, but I want to make sure she doesn't get confused with more.

Do they learn by layout or by sight?

I was looking at his top 2 videos, and I found a number of strange things.

Video 1 - 2024/07/04 - "Back" "Glamour" "Want" "Happy"

• All the buttons that the kitty presses are close to one another.
• Lots of cuts

Video 2 - 2024/07/14 - "Noise" "Before" "Then" "Ouch" "Then" "Glamour" "Happy"

• It's only 10 days after the previous video, but there is a new button for "noise". The kitty presses the "noise" button, seemingly about the July 4th fireworks. But that would mean the kitty can learn a button in less than 10 days and even talk about his past with it ?
• All the buttons that the kitty presses are close to one another.
• Lots of cuts

What do you think ?

I bought a door bell (with an option to customize) for my 3 month old chocolate lab who is already super smart and grasps things rather quickly. Any tips on helping her learn how to potty outside with the button? She has a box that she’s going in but I’d like to train her away from that and to go outside. Thank you! 🖤🙏🏻

I purchased the loud version of the starter kit thinking it would be nice to hear it my cat presses the button when I'm in a different room. However, the buttons seem so loud. The buttons kinda bother my ears and I'm wondering if I should try training my cat with these buttons or return them for the regular volume buttons. Any suggestions would be appreciated. ETA: these are the Fluent Pet buttons

Hi everyone!

I just thought I'd share this -out of excitement lol. I have 2 cats (both 4y). Both females and playful cats. One is a bit more talkative than the other. I bought a set of 4 buttons as a start. They were delivered on Wednesday afternoon and I that's when I started. So it's been almost 3 days now.

Before the set arrived, I've had my 4 words ready (from my list of 30+ words I'm planning to add eventually lol). First I set up a "eat" button on Wednesday afternoon. Today I added "play". Both have definitely noticed the buttons and tapped them slightly. I've had 1 or 2 accidently pushes with "eat" and with "play" while introducing each button. (maybe not a big deal but tbh I think it IS. It means they'll be able to push it easily once they fully understand the concept).

In a few days (or more, depending on our progress) I'll be adding "water" and then "all done". I still have to make a DIY soundboard though🥲

I've been reading some posts here and learned a lot, in addition to many pet accounts on Instagram that use buttons which I've been following their journey since 2020. I hate that it took me this long but I'm glad I'm finally able to be part of this 🐈🐾 I'm planning to share my progress in both my youtube channel and my personal blog. I'm really curious to see how things will progress & to make new pet owner friends!

Not sure if there's anything else I should be doing in the first few days? Any advice or recommendation is welcome :) Thank you 💗

My dog keeps swiping his claws across buttons instead of pressing down on them. They snag on the pad and make the black pieces pop out. Any tips?

I think I've got a pretty good handle on how to teach my dog easier concepts such as "outside" or "play" but I'm struggling with understanding how to teach them more abstract ones such as "want" or "hmmm?" (indicating a question) Did you struggle with that as well? How did you manage to overcome it?

Hello all,

I am training a 3yo Tibetan terrier. When I first learned about the buttons I thought this would be an ideal fit for her. She is very vocal. She also at one point knew all her toys by name.

I started training according to the instructions in the package of FluentPet. I put out 2 tiles with buttons (food and play). We pushed them each time we did the activity. She would never push them. Even if we would play around the buttons she would avoid them like a cat. I looked up many things to try to teach it that way but nothing worked. We tried for months and than we gave up and decided to try another method.

So then I decided to teach her to push the button for sweets. After just a few training sessions she’s doing in quite well! She doesn’t always realise she has to push hard enough but I think she’ll know quickly. She also uses her nose and not her paw but that’s fine I think. However, she does not realise yet that she can push the button without me asking first.

How can I teach her that she can push the button without me asking first?

Thank you!

Anyone else have this problem? I recently introduced a "scared" button because we were moving to a new apartment and I wanted Layla to be able to express her discomfort. Recently she started using "scared" a lot right when I go to bed, sometimes accompanied with "help" and "food". Today I tried giving her some food before getting ready for bed and she's still saying this. I'm a little worried it has to do with her separation anxiety maybe? She was a stray so it's possible she has some trauma around food security. How do I ease this fear? Should I take her to a vet? Any advice would be appreciated!

Ok I have decided to give this a shot with my two year old Havanese. I think I will do walk and up as initial buttons and see if she takes to it.

Any suggestions for a mostly inside small urban dog?

Hi, I Hope thats the right subreddit for my question😅

My Cat has been using Buttons for about a year now, and due to that, her Hextiles Look horrendos. I don't know why, but she keeps scratching the soft foamy tiles. Now they are very scratched Up and Trap all types of Hair and stuff. I can't get them Clean 🥹 (and they are ugly now) Personally I use FluentPet with their Hextiles, but I need Something easear to Clean and Something that can't be destroyed too easily. I thought I once saw Firm plastic Hextiles, but I can't find them anymore. Maybe someone Here knows where to find Something like this, suitsble for FluentPet Buttons 🥲

I'm getting a dog soon which is going to be learning how to use buttons. I've tried the Amazon Learning Resources buttons and the sound quality is absolute garbage.

I was leaning toward the FluentPet Speak Up buttons, but its hard to tell based on the online videos if the sound quality is okay.

My other thought was to hook up buttons to an actual speaker to get clear sound, but I'm not sure how to go about that.

Ok my cat keeps pressing “later” all the time.

I have modeled it like this: “No play, play later” (after he presses play) “Mama home later” (when I’m leaving) “Food all done, food later” (after he presses food)

He still doesn’t press more than one button at a time, even after using the buttons for over a year. So the context is always puzzling to me.

He’ll walk over and press “later” a few times

The only thing I can think is that he’s telling me “it’s later now, so give me that thing you said later to before”

Any suggestions?

We are using buttons with our 2yo aussie/pit mix who is super smart.

So far we have a DCIAER kit from amazon with 6 buttons. It’s getting a lot of use so the buttons are starting to get stuck sometimes and the decals are starting to rub off. Also the buttons don’t stay put on the mat.

The words she has are « love you », « play », « no » (which she uses as a « I am frustrated » button haha), « water », « food », and « go outside ».

We are looking to expand out board as she has been making combinaison for quite a while now (such as « love you » + « go outside » if she wants us to go out with her, « play » + « food » if she wants to do training games, « play » + « outside » etc. You get it). We think that adding nee buttons for « mom », « dad », herself and each of our cats, friends, etc would be a good addition for her to communicate better with us. I also am considering adding a « wait /later » button.

I would like to build her a proper board.

So, here are my questions:

• do you have any suggestions of other words that could be useful? I am thinking maybe so sort of question mark or a yes too.
• i am wondering what kind of buttons to go with next. We are used to those types of button but if we keep expanding we will need a proper board setup so they don’t all get mixed up all of the time. And if we keep on growing, smaller buttons may be more usefull.
• any ideas on how to start building a proper board? Should we go with hextiles? I have seen fluent pet now have hextiles that can fit bigger buttons as well as theirs
• does anyone have any experience with custom decals? I would prefer using decals on the new buttons rather than just writting on them with a sharpie or using stickers.
• is anyone aware of the existence of smaller buttons like the fluent pet ones but on which we can use decals instead of stickers?

Thanks in advance!

I have an 8 month old chihuahua that I have been modelling button use in front of since he was 3 months old. It finally clicked about a month ago and he has a small vocabulary of words to choose from.

There’s clearly a conciousness when I use common vocabulary. He understands peepee, no, and inside all seperately. He seems to understand when I point that I’m directing my attention to something.

Is it time to revisit the notion that talking to your dog after a mistake is futile? We’ve all heard that you’re not supposed to rub your dog’s nose in an accident and chew them out. And I’m in NO WAY suggesting that. But, at least personally, I think I extended that to my dog not having the mental capacity to understand directives about past behaviors.

I’m not sure I believe that anymore. Those of you who’ve had success, is pointing to pee on the floor and saying “no peepee inside, peepee outside”, in a calm, confident voice really a worthless excersise now that we know what we know?

This dog knows how to use buttons!

https://youtube.com/shorts/LWC-ALerG1E?si=HHxKeK6agnkLMbPF

Hello - I’m picking up my pup today, he’s about 8 weeks old. When is a good time to start him on buttons?

I've had an "outside" button for my two cats since May or June. I just had the first press and it was accidental. One of my cats jumped off of the cat tree and landed on the button, triggering it. I've heard that you should treat accidental presses as though they are intentional to help reinforce the meaning. So I immediately got up and let both of them outside. It was a little later and darker out than I would like them to be outside so I only let them wonder around for 2 to 3 minutes. Just wondering how long people think is an appropriate amount of time to let them outside after a press, intentional or not?