About a week from setting up Button #1 “Go For A Walk” and us pressing it before we go for walks to my 5yo rescue mutt pressing it himself when prompted “Do you want to go for a walk?” After about a month he was always hitting the button before we went out but often would come bother us in his old ways (nosing under our hands, whining, pawing at our feet) before he would hit the button to get our attention first.

We added “Puzzle” in month 2 because he only gets treats when he solves a “puzzle” (mix of dog puzzle toys and treat stuffed Kong). That one caught on immediately.

We thought he was getting them mixed up because he would give us all the signs we used to interpret as wanting to go out like a yawn and stretch, hit both buttons, and then stand next to the puzzle basket like we were dumb. We moved the two buttons really far apart.

The reality is he wants puzzles because he’s bored far more often then he ever really wanted to walk, he’s down from 4 walks a day to 2 once we started to trust that he really knew what he was telling us.

We added a “Food” button but he never used consistently because he understands the meal names “breakfast”, “lunch”, “dinner” better then the word “food” for mealtimes. We serve meals at the same time every day anyway so we eventually took the button back up because he never used it.

I have those buttons for my dog. He is a Red heeler and German Shepard mix, and is quite clever.

He pretty much learned to press them immediately, however the only ones he seems to use without prompting is the treat jar and the play buttons.

The rest like hungry, thirsty, and potty he has to be coaxed into using first.

We got a set of these for our puppy, and she picked up on them pretty quick. We’ve got walk, food, play, and outside. It’s not perfect though. Like she’s supposed to hit the walk button when she needs to go potty, but instead she’ll take a shit on the floor and then hit the button. “Look dad I pooped on the floor so we can go outside now!” And I feel like a play button may have backfired cuz she slaps that fucker all day long. I mean they aren’t going to train your pet for you but they are a useful tool. I’m much happier that she’s smacking the button instead of clawing at the front door.

After a year, my reasonably smart cats (potty training them to use the toilet took 3 weeks) have learned that the “outside” makes me open the door, because they rush towards it when I push it. But they never use the button themselves.

Our dogs seemed to understand what they were, but weren’t interested in using them. We mostly had workable signals in place already. I think they just found the buttons unnecessary. And our husky mix comes pretty close to talking anyway.

Never used those buttons, but my idiot cat does have his ways to tell me what he wants, and some of them are a bit abstract. For example, I tried to teach him to “knock” on the window when he wants to be let out / in so he won’t wail at the top of his lungs in the middle of the night when he wants me to open the window for him. It worked after a few weeks, but what he learned is “knocking on glass = human lets me out” so he will sometimes go knock on the glass door of the cabinet instead and then make a beeline for the window once I open it for him. When I play dumb and open the cabinet instead, he’ll just knock harder or THEN move to the window. He isn’t interested in the actual cabinet or its contents at all.

Tapping a button to let the human know what you want can’t be that much more different / abstract for a pet than tapping on glass. You just have to be consistent in showing them the right behaviour and reward it with the correct action whenever they do it right, so they eventually make the connection.

I must be an idiot. When I read the title, I first thought it was a non-native English speaker asking about people who had Tamagotchis back in the day…

As in… a talking button you keep for a pet, not a button FOR your pet to use.

🙃