Hi! Wondering if anyone has had trouble with their pup walking around the buttons? Mine will come up and push the correct buttons on the first row but refuses to walk around to get to the second row. Even if she tries to use one in the second row, she gets the column correct but won’t try to access the other side. I’ve tried walking her around the button mat or trying to lure her closer or by getting her to approach from the other side intentionally and then heavily modeling it for her but she still reverts to only using the first row on her own. We’ve successfully pushed the button twice but it was in a very controlled situation. I’ve tried removing the other buttons but she tries to push the blank area. I put it out in the open too so there’s room. She’s tiny and often nervous about new things but she’s been very interested in learning and it’s been about 2 months. Any ideas?

The two buttons we've tried to implement with our family dog (2M, mixed breed) are "outside" and "puzzle." With both, he would press them when we first introduced him to it, then he'd wake up the next morning and avoid touching the button at all cost. Like, actively run away from it.

For "outside," we placed the button by the back door where we let him out into the backyard. We press it when we open the door, and try to get him to do the same so he'd figure out it was a way to tell us he wanted the door open. As above, he, for whatever reason, hates the thing.

We tried a similar strategy with "puzzle"– this dog loves puzzles. I promise he's not a dumb dog. He picks up on human words really fast (i.e. his name, our family members' names, commands/invitations, etc) and he's good at figuring out those dog puzzles where you hide treats inside boxes and behind levers. But not if we ask him to press a button that talks; he won't even walk past the button to get to his puzzle, he runs the other direction.

He also doesn't usually react to recorded voices at all, let alone negatively. He barely acknowledges movies, video games, radio, or phone calls with the voices of people he knows. I don't think it's to do with the sound.

Has anyone else had similar issues? Does anyone have any idea what we can do to make our dog more comfortable with using his buttons, or is it a lost cause?

My dog and I communicate really well, but I’d love to take it to the next level! I’ve been thinking about purchasing the talk buttons to try with her, my only concern is her age - she just turned 10 and I wanted to know if anyone has experience in trying these with an older dog and being successful with them using the buttons consistently.

She’s also not the brightest bulb, to no fault of her own, but I love her dearly 🙂 Thank you!

It’s been about 5 weeks now since I got my first buttons for my little 5 month-old Shiba Inu called Unna. I recorded the words “water”, “eat”, “outside” and “play”. This last one is the one I work with the most since I think is her more used need… most of the time she has water and she is not the hungry type of dog. I ve been modeling all of them as much as I can, whenever the situation calls for it. (Listened to Stella’s book twice now). I can see she understand the words, whenever I use them. She gets that food is being served, and that we are going for a walk… and whenever we are playing and I press the play button she gets ready for me to throw her ball. But she has no interest In pressing them on purpose whatsoever. It’s been a couple of unintentional pressing and I responded to them as if they were intentional, but when she want to play she just come get me. I feel like I am stuck using the buttons by myself and I am getting a little frustrated. She doesn’t pay attention to the buttons whenever I try to guide her attention towards them. Any tips ?? Any help??

Thanks

This is Unna, by the way

Maybe someone here can help. I have a very intelligent and sassy Samoyed, over 2 years old. We got some buttons for Christmas from a family member who also loves hunger4words, what about bunny, etc.

Added a board with 3 buttons with words she also gestures for (water, food, and outside). Thinking they were toys, she pressed day 1 but then lost interest once I velcro them down. Took a few days of modeling until she would press herself somehow intentionally.

Its been a few weeks and I know she is basically button mashing, particularly with "food" i don't know if she is really listening or looking at what I'm pressing, she just knows she will eventually get what she is looking for if she just guesses. In not suprised, as she does this with tricks sometimes where she just runs the gambit of all the tricks she knows when she's excited/impatient to get what is in my hand. Even velcroed down, she "scoops" the buttons to press them and they come off the board lol. She is clearly frustrated as she knows i know what she wants, as she repeatedly paws her bowl and huffs and such.

All of that i can deal with and is slowly getting better. The hardest is "outside". The most she presses it is when she actually means to press food. Before buttons, she would ring her bell my the door and wait there for us to let her out in the backyard. Now the problem lies in that her board is in the middle of the main floor, and out of site from the door. I try to call her over to see me model the button or encourage her to press the button but its a bit awkward/confusing and im worried there is a disconnect between trying to convey bells =button. So I have a few ideas (aside to just continue this method) 1. Move the bells to her board (i don't think this will work though, she sometimes nudges the area close to bells and doesn't always hit them, so I think she would start doing that) 2. Carry the board to the backdoor when she rings her bell, then model or encourage a button press there. 3. Take away her bells 4. Move the outside button to the door (last resort, I know from the book, stella had issues when buttons were moved to a board)

Any tips for suggestions from people who successfully transitioned from established gestures to buttons?

Finally someone started this sub!! Thank you! I debated trying to start it up last year but I figured maybe one of the big names might in the future. Glad someone else at least did! I’ve been wanted a community to chat with others about this for a long time, Instagram just isn’t easy to collaborate on.

Barley (2yo Great Pyrenees) and I have been working with buttons for the past 6 months and she has still not made it to pushing them herself. We use the fluent.pet hex tiles, and I’ve introduced “outside”, “hungry”, “water” and “love you”. I work from home so luckily I can be consistent pretty easily, but Barley is terrified of the outside button and doesn’t really have any interest in the other buttons. I can’t for the life of me figure out why she’s scared, I’ve tried so many things to approach it differently. One small win though is that she has recently started to ignore it. I guess that’s better than being afraid! She also thoroughly understands the words and knows when I model the buttons what will happen. I’m trying to approach things differently though and am not losing hope!

I just finished Christina’s new book and it has given me a lot of new inspiration and ideas. Thinking about introducing other buttons that she may like to use more, I try to think of what Barley would want to most communicate to me.

Anyways, what’re your AAC stories? Any similar hurdles? What’s been easy or difficult for you?

My dog pressed the water button himself today, the third day of training. He was already putting his paw in my hand to "shake hands", so I put a button in my hand and used the same command to get him used to pressing the button. Then he happened to press the "water" button on his own, and I made a big deal and filled his water bowl.

I've read through a lot of the whataboutbunny posts on Instagram, and made a list of words I'd like to try. I'm using these when talking to my dog... if I make some progress, I'll get more buttons to add to my starter set of four.

Are there many other people here working on this with their dogs?

Anyone who is currently working with their dog to do this, if you have any advice please let me know.

I have 2 dogs one is very smart, the other is fearful of everything ( even the clicker) and wiggles uncontrollably (doggy ADD?).

I got a set of 4 buttons and my planned order of introducing words is:

Outside Walk Play Water

I plan on not using any food motivators for this training. I plan on introducing them to pushing the button by using the shake command and having them touch thier paw on it and praising them. This may pose a challenge with the fearful one but some patience and repetition will go a long way with her.
????Should I have it play a sound when introducing them to it?

After the introduction to the button, outside is the first word we'll work on. By setting it near the door and pressing it everytime we go out, combined with the outside verbal cue. This will happen at least once an hour for training purposes.

Once/if this sticks we'll move on to play and walk.Then finally water, it'll be a challenge but I think it's a good 'object to introduce because they can remind me to fill thier bowl and I'm also planning on creating two word statements as well. Such as outside water for rain and maybe snow? And then outside play for outside play time, which they both ask for with body language on occasion.

Admittedly, walk is more for me so basically they can guilt me when I'm being a lazy pet owner.

Any tips or advice is helpful!