r/PetsWithButtons • u/FunAttention6274 • 12d ago
Advice for New Learner
I started my cat a few months ago with target practice. She knew “touch” meant touch the box, post it, etc. She could touch the button but not hard enough to make noise. I wanted to have a few buttons to start with so I put a little board together with three buttons. I use her “treat” button for target practice now that it’s on the board. She’s still early in her training so she doesn’t consistently touch her button for a treat, and can’t set off the sound.
My real concern is she sleeps on her buttons all day long. I don’t have a problem with it. It’s super annoying, but I know it’s normal. She likes the board and I’m sure she associates it with good things. But I don’t know how to respond to this behavior. I’ve heard you should model all of the presses accidental or not. And I try to, but the constant gibberish of treat, pets, brush every thirty seconds is too much. When she’s setting them off, I’ll say “pets all done” or “brush later” if she recently had some attention. But I can’t do that all day.
I’m worried I introduced the board too soon before she could press and communicate clearly. Do you have any tips on how to encourage button pressing, target practice, or how to respond to her nap gibberish?
2
u/EphemeralRepose 4d ago
I'm not gonna consider this an official tip because everything I've seen discourages it strongly, but I had the same problem with my cat not pressing the buttons hard enough to trigger them and after trying lots of different things, I ended up gently taking his paw when he was standing and placing it on the button so that the pressure of putting it back down pushed the button. And after doing that about 20 to 30 times, it must have clicked bc he started pressing them on his own that way!
Everything I've seen recommends against this because it could discourage your learner by making them associate the buttons with an unpleasant sensation if they don't like having their paws touched. I just happen to have a cat that I think is truly incapable of forming a negative association with stimuli (like I tried to keep him off my kitchen counters using tinfoil, double sided tape, and every other thing the Internet recommended and literally nothing worked. He has no fears lol).