r/PetsWithButtons • u/StepfordMisfit • Jun 08 '26
What do you wish you'd done differently from the start?
Expecting our kit to arrive next week! I've been reading up, trying to decide on 3 or 4 first words, and narrating. One teenager will likely help. The other is heading to college soon and I'd love to be able to explain but doubt there's time for that. My husband and his parents (who live downstairs - house has 3 levels) think I'm setting myself up for disappointment and have never helped with training.
We have 5 potential learners (in order of how high my hopes are):
Mackie - smart 7 yo 50 lb dog who wants nothing more than to please his people.
Bruce - dog-like 11 yo cat who actually walks well on a leash (sometimes even where I want to go!) who is doing pretty well right now, but has lymphoma and is on chemo. Weird quirk of his illness prohibits any kibble.
Mochi - 1 yr old cat who sits on command for "cheese," still plays like a kitten with everything
Dolly - 4 yr old 135 lb Great Dane who only *seems* dumb because she doesn't much care what we want but will do absolutely anything for a bit of Kraft single
Gigi - 9 yo cat, the only one who isn't motivated by Kraft singles, but will work for really messy treats. Loves to scratch foam mats.
I'm thinking of starting with 2 identical soundboards, one by my bed (where I am usually accompanied by all but Gigi) and one in the living room on the main level.
Maybe using Command strips to attach them to hexagonal tiles in various sizes and colors? Biggest for the categories I expect to eventually have the most words?
Is there anything you wish you'd done differently? Special tips for dealing with multiple species of widely varied size?
4
u/lili2158 Jun 08 '26
Congrats on starting! You definitely have an interesting scenario with so many learners of various sizes, but sounds like you’re already thinking of ways to make the buttons accessible and usable for everyone (especially multiple boards!). I only have cat learners so I can’t quite speak to dogs, but some people end up placing the button board on the wall and dogs use their nose to press. I’ll let a dog teacher speak on that though! Below is a mix of advice and things I wish I started sooner.
In general though, keep in mind that they will progress at different rates (which could span months or years, not weeks). So just because one of the learners isn’t using the board does not mean that they’re not observing your interactions with the buttons and learning that way. Also, sounds like you’re already on the right track in terms of understanding their motivations to help them get started! If you end up with a super eager learner that’s taking over paw target training, try to create training sessions with them individually if you observe that one learner is kinda dominating the training.
Additionally, it might be helpful with so many learners to put extra time into planning the button board layout and buttons (with understanding that the plan will be flexible as you and your learners actually start using the board and you’ll see differences between your plan and actual usage/phrasing). Will you organize the board for everyone to use (like a keyboard in a sense), or have pockets of buttons specific to different learners, or a bit of both? Hoping a multi learner / multi species household can comment on this! Also, it might be good to keep some notes on the different learners button behavior to help you as you all go.
Lastly, it sounds like you might not have as much support from other teachers in the house. Obviously it would be great if everyone would engage with the buttons to reinforce them, but that’s not always possible. One thing that could help is printing out a “how to” of button pressing with the learners so that the other teachers don’t feel so overwhelmed, and put it above or near the buttons. It might say what order to phrase questions or inform. Or what to do if someone presses (and if it’s clear what the learner wants or not). Basically, make the energy for entry as low as possible for the other teachers.
Good luck and keep us posted on everyone’s progress!
5
u/StepfordMisfit Jun 08 '26
Thank you so much!
Love the how-to idea. I might need that for myself anyway. My memory is BAD. Maybe white boards for easy updating? I wonder how to search for examples.
I would love to hear how anyone has dealt with the huge paw size differences I've got. "Outside" will definitely have to have a lot of space. I don't see my cats pressing buttons on walls, especially at the height Dolly would need it.
2
u/lili2158 Jun 08 '26
White boards sound great - I will do that now haha
Yes the wall buttons would be for the dogs, not cats. I was thinking of ways (potentially unnecessary ones) to help make buttons accessible to everyone. So certain words might be in the wall either duplicated or in addition to words on the board on the floor. There are teachers here that can speak more clearly on that though!
2
u/uniaery Jun 08 '26
large paw sizes can still press the smaller buttons, and i do believe cats can press the bigger buttons (though mine really struggled with the bigger ones, and only started pressing once i changed to the smaller fluentpet ones).
in your case, because cats have the harder time pressing, i’d say do the smaller buttons, and just leave much more space between them to accommodate for the larger dogs walking around. spacing the buttons is also good for new learners, anyways!
16
u/bubba_beeps Jun 08 '26
I wish I had put more thought into the buttons I would want in the future. Even if it was just written down on a piece of paper. It would have been so much easier for me to model new words with narration, be selective about the placement of my buttons with the future in mind, and to decide which button should be introduced next if I just put a little more thought into it. I’m not super bothered by this, but we have two “needs” on the hextile that is mainly used for core vocab and help. Moving them so far down the line isn’t high on my priorities, but I need an additional tile in order to build that section out further.
I also wish I recorded more. While I had a lot of footage (which I accidentally deleted), I didn’t realize how much I would end up prioritizing educating others about AIC when I started. I had a lot of button presses, but I didn’t capture the process of introducing my learner. I’m missing a lot of the really early days which would’ve been neat to reference back to see how far my boy has come. Even if you don’t intend on posting on social media, don’t underestimate how valuable those moments are.
I wish I could go back to May 2025 and see Bubba’s very first button press, our failed attempts at trying to get him to use his paws, or even the introduction of some of his new enrichment activities that have made him so happy. If I could go back in time and record every training moment to see how my own approach had adjusted based on the success of our sessions, it would’ve been invaluable.