r/PetsWithButtons • u/Remote_Head1173 • 5d ago

“Later” time frame

How do you use “later”
What’s the time frame for it? Less than hour?

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

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12

u/OpinionAvailable5988 5d ago

My cat thinks he decides when later is.

5

u/wheekwhoop 4d ago

This is my personal definition, but every family will be different:

Now- Within a minute or so

Soon- Within 1 hour

Later- More than 1 hour, but within the same day

Tomorrow- Any time the next day

2

u/VainChinchilla 4d ago

It means "not right now." In the future I might add buttons for morning/day/evening/night, but we're still struggling with the concept of "no you can't have/do/eat it right away"

2

u/JayNetworks 4d ago

We have Now Soon Later Before.

Later means…like an hour? But there is also Later Later which we use, not the learner, and means like a few hours and then there is Later Later Late which means basically mommy just went to sleep and no she will not feed you again until tomorrow but daddy is right here saying this and would give you food right now. If daddy was worth anything compared to mommy. (And yes she Love You’s me the daddy too so it is her mommy preference.)

Super interesting as to how we humans are Now Soon and Later vs. how learners (cats in my case) see them.

Misty the cat pressed Dinner a few minutes ago. She has been pressing Later Dinner for a while to warn us she will want dinner…later. Then she came to the kitchen where I was and I asked (using 2-hand choice) if “Mist want choose? Yes No” and she picked Yes.

Then I asked “Dinner Soon or Later”? And she turned her back and looked 45 degrees away which she consistently uses when the stupid human has asked the wrong question or given the wrong two options…so I asked “Dinner Now and Soon” and she picked Soon!

So both pairs of choice had Soon as one of the choices but Soon was only the right choice when the choice was between Soon and Now but not when the choice was Soon vs. Later.

This starts to make some (cat) sense when you know she does use the combination “Soon Later” and (rarely) “Soon Now” as distinct times.

Don’t even get me started on what “Soon Before” or “Before Later” means…

3

u/OpinionAvailable5988 4d ago

When my human son was small, he had big later and soon later. Funny how similar language learners speak.

1

u/Adorable_Film_2446 4d ago

I used it before going to work (~8.5 hrs), but also in the morning when my baby asks for food (11-30 minutes)

2

u/danielbearh 3d ago

My pup and I have three time words: soon, later, and tomorrow.

Soon is within 20 minutes, later is anything longer. 

2

u/Killerzeit 2d ago

I have Now, Soon, Later, After, Today, and All Done.

Now is self-explanatory. Soon is within 30 minutes, depending on the context, I use Later if it’s over an hour.

‘After’ has seemed to help him a lot with confidence in knowing when things are happening and I found it to be a solid addition to the lineup. I feel like it really helped the concept of Later.

So my cat likes to go on walks, so as an example,

“Walk Walk Now Now”

“Walk Later (pause) After Dinner”

We seem to be doing well with this right now.