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?

She got playtime and treats and confirmed that she was happy again.

Do any of you have experience regarding learners laying down on their buttons or even falling asleep on them? She has been actively pressing for less than a week bow, but today she has taken to laying down and sleeping on her buttons. Do I react to buttons she presses like that. Do I try to discourage laying on them somehow? If so… how? Or do I just let this happen and only react to what I suspect are intentional presses?

Hi! My girl understands pushing the buttons but has a hard time if buttons are right next to each other. She also basically forgets/refuses to push any buttons that are not at the front of the hexagon and easily accessible.

Any tips on this? I've done target training but she still smashes two buttons at once if they're next to each other and the buttons at the back are lost to her.

My little dog has just started pressing his buttons. So far we have Treat, Out and Snuggle. He uses them appropriately but almost always with prompts. But we are progressing.

I’m looking ahead to have him be able to express his anxiety about outside noises with buttons instead of barking jags. I haven’t settled on a vocabulary or protocol yet. Right now, I’m interrupting his barking jags by touching him, and telling him we’re Safe and Together. But I need a vocabulary for him to first express what has set him off. Something like Stranger? Danger? Alert?

Has anyone done something like this? How did you go about it?

For those with more buttons (say 10+), where do you add new buttons on the board? Specifically for buttons of opposite/related concepts since it’s easier to teach pairs at once. Say if you add hot/cold, or clean/dirty, do you put the pair beside each other or far away and easily distinguishable?

https://reddit.com/link/1epcpry/video/6kbcanwqvyhd1/player

It took 18 months of consistent modeling and target training, but finally! My cat is actually using them now!

I'm not sure whether she actually wants to play every mealtime, but anyway.....

How would you model buttons that are just the names of people? I’m not sure pointing works for our cat.

Update: She got 2 people buttons and her own name this morning. She used her first button to tell me she was mad that dad went outside only 1 hour after we installed it. Thanks so much for everyone’s advice ❤️

I’ve started with just a few buttons with my two cats (both almost 3y) in the last couple of weeks. I think one of them is starting to get it (she is very praise motivated and that seems to be helping in her case). Her brother, less so… so far. If nothing else she is very interested and curious.

What were some of the first signs that your pets were actually getting it and catching on its a communication tool? Especially if you have strictly indoor cats where some motivators like “outside” were off the table at the time.

I’d like to hear what kinds of things really turned out to be good signs that led to progress… just to be sure I’m not reading too much into it or getting ahead of myself.

Thanks everyone!

We have a cheap set of Amazon buttons and our puppy (now dog) took to them really well! He had outside, water, treat and play. I’d leave them out all the time and he used them well.

We introduced a new button recently, over a year since he started using them. The button was “I love you” which we used as a “I want fusses” type button and he loved it. He was obsessed and suddenly he has started picking up his original buttons and moving around with them. Mostly he will collect them and take them outside and chew on them. We have taken them off of him of course.

He is now getting really frustrated that he can’t tell us he wants to go out and he slaps where his outside button used to be and slams his 40 kg butt into the patio doors instead. When we put it back, he chews it and brings it to us and won’t drop unless we have a trade. What can we do to help him unlearn this behaviour. By trading I know we are re-enforcing the behaviour but all of the advice I find says to engage them elsewhere and distract them.

I have a senior, very sedate, very timid indoor Siamese. What beginning buttons would you recommend I begin with?

Which button types are easier for small or weak pets (kittens...) to press?

I'm sure the button manufacturers never tried to make an easypress button for KITTENS. Correct me if wrong?

Pixel (3M) has been using buttons for about 10 months now. What can I add next?

He knows the words “catnip” and his name. He probably knows “bye” too because I say it when I leave and “hi Pixel” when I come home. He also knows “treats”. I am trying to get him to understand “later”, “soon” and “now”. He probably also understands “pets” (I have not been consistent in saying this as I pet him) and “brush” (he rushes to me when I brush my hair and I have to then brush him too).

I’d love to teach him about sounds, smell and discomfort/pain. I am not sure how to model that.

How did you manage to get a pet to push the buttons?

....aside from "push button get treat" which we all know works, but is problematic in having the pet understand it is not performing a trick and actually communicating ---- or get them to stop pressing it?

so he barks at the one he wants pushed instead 🤦‍♀️

We just started (less than a week in), so I know it will take some time, but this is a funny development to me haha. Didn't see it coming. We started excidentally with the buttons at the start of a fear period for him, so we'll just take it slow.

Tips for beginner learners are welcome! This wil (hopefully) be our first talking pet.

Hoping to train a yorkie to use the buttons, but some of the ones I've pressed in the past seem like they will be too hard for his little body weight to push down on. I haven't looked at the big name brands, though.

Cat emotions proven via buttons:

-Longerm grief. Some cats can hit the button for another cat's name long after he's dead, and generally in a sad mood when doing so. I'm not sure they understand "dead" as separate of "walked away forever", tho.

-Happy. While some cats use the "happy" button to mean OK or DONE, some clearly understand the concept and add much purring for confirmation when using the happy button.

Can you add examples? Regardless of if the emotions can be proven without buttons because button talk is fun. (-;

Hello, I ordered a starter kit of two fluent pet buttons and two hex tiles but I have yet to set them up or start anything because I don’t want to teach my dog that he can press a button to potty, but then not always have the opportunity to press the button… if that makes sense.

What I mean is, he’s 14 weeks old right now and he’s super smart and I think he’d catch on very quickly to the buttons. But he’s still in his crate sleeping 16-20 hours a day. Most of his crate time is strictly scheduled 2hr blocks. Occasionally we are out of the house longer than two hours and once/twice a week my boyfriend and I are both out of the house for the day for work where someone comes in a couple times for potty breaks. He doesn’t have accidents in his crate ever though.

So I’m just curious of when others started with buttons and if your pups were also still in their crates a lot for naps/potty training. And if so, how did you/your pups handle the buttons?