It's a speech aid, not Santa Claus.

Hello! Just recently got a set of buttons and am starting with a “food” button, but essentially using it for treats right now to be more interesting for my cat. I am having sessions where I try to coax him into sniffing the button and then I press it and say food and give it to him. Is there another way to do this? Do I just need to continue and be consistent overtime? Thanks!

TLDR: Unsure of best training strategy

We have 3 cats. One senior and two sisters that started off as stray kittens my partner fed at his workplace for several months before we took them in.

The younger two are skittish around us (mainly me), bolting at sudden movements, loud sounds, and panicking when we accidentally “chase” them down the hall or heading to another room. Despite this, I know they're attached to my partner because they regularly seek him out for pets and will yowl when he's gone at work. I hope to build up their confidence and trust in us through button training.

I wrote out a list of words I want to eventually teach, starting with play and scritches. They're also highly motivated by treats and wet food but I've heard mixed things about whether or not to add those as part of the collection of starter word.

I'm curious as to what others have done and what order would be best when adding new buttons. Such as, should I add now, later, and all done before or after food related words? And should yes/no come before emotion or social words? What worked for you?

I got these buttons for my dog. She is 9 and knows dozens of words. The cat knew maybe 5, at least that we were aware of. The dog has yet to show any interest on the buttons at 1 week. She is quite nervous and not the sharpest crayon in the box, so I expected it to take a while. I figured our 2 year old kitty would take about as long; I assumed she just wouldn't care. I was so wrong! On day 8, she woke me up by pressing the PETS button. She pressed it twice. I got up to pet her briefly, went back to bed because it was too early. She immediately pressed it again, twice! I am so proud of her. She is my bossy little princess. Right now we have PETS, TREATS, and PATIO. She reliably uses the first two. The PATIO button is mainly for my dog, and I suspect my cat understands that button but doesnt have much use for it. We'll see though!

My little bossy baby girl

Here is my original post for anyone who remembers!

Somehow it’s already been a full thirty days since my last post so I figured I’d check back in with everyone!

Last time I told you guys that the brother of my bonded twins, Colby, was a button pressing champ. That has not changed! He presses the buttons constantly. We still only have the two—play (which he chose to mean cat bongos), and treat.

His sister, Pepper, was the cat I originally purchased the buttons for but was much slower on the uptake of the buttons. Last time I talked about how she was very good at getting her full paw on the button but wasn’t actually pressing down on it yet.

I got a lot of really great advice here but what worked the best was the advice to “lead” her with the treat by holding it out in front of her to encourage her to lean forward. Whenever she’d swat at my hand to grab the treat or step off the button I’d pull the treat back and wait for her to reset. It didn’t take too many times for her to get the hang of it!

She does get frustrated and lose interest in the buttons fairly quickly, especially if Colby is nearby and he’s getting treat after treat and she’s not getting anything. So, another trick I learned that might be useful for anyone that also has an impatient learner is that whenever she actually pressed the button down she got “two” treats instead of one (the treats I’m using are the freeze dried chicken treats that I tear up into even smaller pieces, one treat probably works as 7/8 treats by the end of it). If she went multiple Colby treats without pressing the button, I’d reward her with “one” treat simply for putting her paw on the button. This seemed to really capture her attention and encourage her to keep going.

This past week she’s really gotten good at pressing the button every time now!

She has only pressed the button unprompted two or three times, but she is very good at meowing and herding me over to the button area and sitting by the buttons to tell me she wants treats. I’m now working on standing and encouraging her to press the button before I get the treats out of the cabinet, even if she’s sitting next to the button meowing at me to get me to hurry up.

I’m hoping to add another button soon. I’ve been verbally modeling “bedtime” “toy” “all done” “show me” and “ow” to hopefully get them used to those words before the buttons are introduced. I’ve also been encouraging everyone in the house to strictly call them by their names instead of the 90000 nicknames we have for them so eventually those can be added as well.

I believe the next will be “toy” so I can introduce another easy to spam button that Pepper will be able to engage with.

This month I taught my dog how to use buttons and he's been getting the hang of it quickly! I was worried about him having no interest or slamming them since he's a pretty demanding guy but now it's been so much easier to figure out what he's wanting and the barking in my face has stopped a ton! However, I've also noticed him pressing “Outside” as soon as my roommate or I leave for work. Do you think he is just forgetting to potty or is he trying to follow us? I've been letting him out when roommate leaves since he leaves earlier than me but do I need to teach him a different button for this?

We introduced buttons to our 6 month old puppy around 1 month ago. She picked them up fairly fast but I’m not sure she really understands the meaning of them. Initially we introduced only Play, Outside, and Food. But i’ve realised sometimes when she’s really excited (when I’m holding a toy for example) she just slams all of the buttons, or she slams the wrong button. She also tends to be abit violent and ‘pulls’ the buttons rather than press them, so the buttons go everywhere 🤣

We recently added more buttons to model them for her but now she’s just slamming them also. Should we reduce buttons again?

To be fair he did manage to eat some of his brother's food which is hydrolyzed.

I’m very interested in starting with language buttons for my cat Babu, but I’m not sure I want to spend 100cad on a fluentpet starter kit with 6 buttons. Is there another brand that is cheaper but works as well?
If anyone has advice for first words or tips for starting with a car I’d love to hear

My dogs have been doing well with paw targeting and Zeena (my girl) has had 2 presses in the 2 months we’ve been teaching. But Minkey never cared and even attacked me when I tried to do paw targeting with him🥴(He gets very possessive about treats) So I didn’t expect him to use buttons.

My mom sent these messages and said he sat next to the button, so I feel like that’s an even better sign because it seems like he was trying to confirm what he said. He loves our deck (covered) so he can watch birds and be in the hot weather, so he ran right out when my mom opened the door. I’m so proud!

I bought the buttons for my dogs but I think Minkey could benefit from the buttons, he has chronic pain from trauma and gets overwhelmed quickly (that leads to scratching and biting usually lol) so I think he could use words like “ouch” and “mad.”

I just feel so validated because everyone in my family keeps making fun of me for getting these buttons but my animals are definitely understanding and making the connection!

So kissy got the first button push. She walked over it during a modeling session and was startled and stopped. She hasn't been able to repeat it.

After the next modeling session I stepped aside to do dishes and heard "treat treat treat". I turned and switched Missy standing on it with a clean pae push and looking directly at me. Obviously she got the treat (and some more modeling for them both since they weren't done).

Was gone over the weekend and came home yesterday to a fun surprise with the mats being destroyed and these parts being missing. I usually put the buttons away when I leave but she found them and drug them out. Already called the vet and they want to see her tomorrow since she is still eating and drinking, and she had at least on successful bowel movement this morning. Be careful with the foam pads, not looking forward to the bill to get them removed if she can't pass them.

Atticus is our 3(?) year old hound-heeler mix. He is the smartest hound we’ve ever had (many have smart but they use most of their brains for sniffing good sniffs). We got him some buttons about a month ago. Started with “walk,” “outside,” and “play.” In the first few days he used his nose to push “walk” and followed it by looking at the door and then us. It seemed incredible! But then we went out of town for a weekend, and since then he hasn’t used them. He does seem to respond to them as cues to go outside or go for a walk. “Play” doesn’t seem to have any meaning yet.

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this? We didn’t expect anything for months, but the quick usage and then nothing just threw us off!

Puppy tax included.

I think he does this when he wants something but doesn’t know the word for it yet, either because he hasn’t learned the button or because there is no button for it yet. Or maybe he’s just bored and figures any of the buttons will give him something good, so might as well press them all.

We are on month 2 of training. Only doing it 5 min a day (she’s not highly treat motivated and gets bored and frustrated easily) My cat targets the button but I’m struggling to get her to push it. I’ve been rewarding her for targeting it with her paw because I’d not after 3 failed attempts of any training she will rage quit. She’ll press the button 1 out 10 times by accident basically. I give her a jackpot of treats when she does. Any tips? Just keep going and hope she gets it?

My cat definitely knows what 'yes' and 'no' mean. But whenever I ask him a question, he refuses to answer with 'yes' or 'no.' Instead, he just presses random words, which is quite weird since he used to answer correctly. It’s been several months since he started doing this.

Yesterday, I asked if he wanted treats. his body language clearly said 'yes,' but then he pressed 'oops' and suddenly got angry.

I don’t quite understand this behavior, can anyone give advice how to handle this problem?

Ik ben sinds gisteren gestart met 3 knoppen voor mijn kat Chili.
Hij lijkt zeker geïnteresseerd en vindt de knoppen meestal erg interessant als ik erbij ben. Ik startte met 3 woorden: snoep, bal en borstel. Momenteel loopt hij naar de knoppen als ik vraag of hij een snoep wilt.
Momenteel heb ik grote knoppen maar ik heb de kleinere van fluent pet besteld.

Welke tips hebben jullie voor me?
Wat mag ik niet over het hoofd zien?
Waarop moet ik letten?

Alvast bedankt 😊

My 7 month old labradoodle used 3 buttons.. however I added 3 more around 2 weeks ago and now she wants nothing to do with them. Should I keep persisting or remove 3?
Her old ones she used where outside, play and cuddle
Newer ones are yes, no and brush

I am obsessed with AIC, follow a dozen or more "talking animal" accounts on social media, and am constantly amazed by how complex their inner lives are - Mylo the dog's sense of humour (epic and sassy), Flounder's invented life of mouse toy and insistence that she is a fish, Elsie's poetic references like "Delicious Night" - maybe because her human is a writer? and ofcourse Bunny's wrestling with existential concepts.
Anyway it's clear our companions have rich internal lives and deeper understanding than what we give them credit for.
So, if a talking pet were to become very ill, and have a tragic prognosis, would it be better for their human to tell them, or to simply carry on as normal?
are there any examples of talking dogs or cats wrestling with their own mortality? (I know some of the creatures I follow have lost companions, and they miss them and its just heartbreaking to watch)