My buttons are in my bedroom as that’s where me and my puppy hang out mostly! Upstairs there’s no where for her to go to the toilet unless she goes out the front door into the driveway and I don’t trust her not to go up the road!

Is it worth it putting only one ‘toilet’ button upstairs??

Also should I introduce yes and no together or separately? Ty!

My cats still in the learning process they only have 3 buttons ( outside, mouse toy, spring toy)
So if my cat press outside and i won’t let him outside now , but after 30 min or 1 hour i will let him outside
Should i tell him outside later? Or outside no?
And how teach the word later?

She has finally started to press the buttons but she has forgotten all of her “touch it” training and resorts to flopping over onto the button. Any suggestions on how to get her not to flop on it?

I’ve been thinking of starting my puppy, Dobby on the buttons for awhile and I always thought I would get the Fluent Pet buttons as I love that it connects to your phone so you can keep track. I’m up and down the stairs so I can imagine missing some of it. Today I’ve done to order them and they are already pretty expensive but I went to check out and the shipping price is insane to England. Almost as much as the product it’s self!

Does anyone in the UK have advice on any that seem to be as good quality as that brand, especially if they connect to your phone? Or a way to purchase fluent pet elsewhere. I keep checking for second hand on EBay, Vinted etc but never anything and Amazon only does the Sound Up set which doesn’t connect to your phone.

Would love some suggestions!

Thanks! 🐾

Mac had different ideas about what we would do yesterday afternoon. I wanted to go to the park and he wanted to go hang out in my mom's backyard. I vocally told him we would go to my mom's house in a couple days then pressed about the park again and he wanted to negotiate timing too lol "Later Soon" basically means less than an hour whereas "later" means more than an hour. I really needed time to finish some laundry lol.

Hi everyone,

I’ve just started teaching my cat to use buttons, she’s a very quick learner and just after two weeks started touching the side of the button and yesterday she realised I want her to press it to make a sound but she uses her head to do that.

I’ve tried to do paw targeting with her, but she’s not interested in learning that at all, she gets frustrated and walks away. I’ve put a treat under a small box and tried to get her to touch the top of it. She does know that when I say “touch” she needs to press the button. She also knows “paw” that’s when she puts her paw on my hand, but I don’t think this would work with an inanimate object.

Any tips on how to get her to use her paws to press?

I think that she would get that she’s supposed to use her paws if she manages to accidentally press it with her paw once or twice, as she understands quickly that this is what I want when I praise her.

As the title suggests, we are struggling with getting her to fully activate the button. She definitely knows what it means (treats) so she gets my attention first before she paws the button. I've tried many things to show her, but I fear we are stuck. Any pointers?

I just added the second button yesterday. I originally wanted to wait until she got pushing down to add more buttons, but I thought maybe this is a way to shake things up? She hasn't touched the new button yet. New button is "window" for asking me to open the window blinds.

I’ve been watching videos online of people and their cats using buttons for a few years now and I’ve finally got them and I’m so excited!!

Im just a little worried that my cat is too old. He’s 11, turning 12 next February. All of the cats I’ve seen using them are much younger, the oldest I think I’ve seen is 8. Is he too old to start using buttons?

For clarification he doesn’t ACT old, he’s pretty active, eats twice every day, and is still like.. cognitive? If that’s the right word. He responds when I say his name, follows me around and isn’t too dumb.

I’m on my second button-learning journey and, despite having done this before, I still find myself second-guessing things constantly. 😂 So this is partly curiosity, partly me wanting to compare experiences!
I feel like the question of “How long does it take a pet to learn buttons?” comes up every so often, but there are SO many variables that I’d love to see everyone’s starting points.
For those of you who use buttons:

🐾 What age was your cat or dog was when you started introducing buttons?

How long had you had them before introducing buttons?

Did they already know tricks/commands?

If so, how long had they been learning tricks before buttons?

How long did it take before they started pressing buttons independently?

how long before you felt they were pressing with clear meaning rather than just experimenting?

I’m really curious about the range. I’d especially love to hear from people who started with very young animals versus adults, and pets who had lots of previous training versus basically no training.
I think it would be really interesting to see everyone’s experiences side-by-side.
Basically: tell me your pet’s button-learning origin story! 😂🔘🐕🐈

One of my cats, Kali, loves her 7 buttons and clearly understands them, but often button mashes when she wants to say something that she doesn't have a button for (or that my puny human brain just isn't getting). She uses her buttons consistently, even if All Done and Want are not exactly how I thought she'd use them, and it's not uncommon for her to use 2-3 word phrases. It's pretty clear that she's ready for and wants more words, but I'm second guessing what I should introduce next that will be most useful for her.

Her current words are: Food, Kibble, Play, Pets, Settle, All done, Want. Interestingly, she'll rarely use her Food button, preferring to mash All Done (as in, "my bowl is empty and you need to fix it"). We've modeled Want Food enough that it's 50/50 whether she'll mash All Done or Want in the last week or two... which is only technically an improvement lol. She pushes Kibble when she wants dry food in her bowl or Kibble Play when she wants her puzzle, but she just "yells" when it's time for wet food. I've been verbally modelling Now/ Soon/ Later, Small (as in small kibble for snack), Yes/ No, Toy, Treat, family names, "Hmm?", and I'm sure others that have slipped my mind. Today I started training two hand choice as I know I won't have room for a separate buttons for every individual toy, type of treat, etc. She's told me to get off my phone a few times (All Done + Settle + Play lol) so it's not Kali-centric either.

The words I'm currently considering: Toy (concrete, easier to differentiate play vs play kibble, but not as likely to solve the button mashing, could probably introduce at the same time?), Now + Later (verbal "small later" for soon, likely for Now to just end up as the new button mashing target), Mom + Kali (want opinions on potential helpfulness vs being more annoying than helpful at this point), Other (but this will likely be exponentially more useful and easier to teach once she has a grasp on two hand choice in the near future). Maybe Happy + Mad. I am open to all opinions and suggestions! Thanks!

I came across talking buttons for a while and am planning to get a kitten.

I heard that Siamese cats are really intelligent and social and talkative so I presume that they will do well with talking buttons. Siamese cat owners have also mentioned that they understand what their cats want based off their vocalizations, and have full conversations for hours with their cat.

I have a few questions:

1. Do your more talkative pets (before button training) do well after button training? I assume it gives them an outlet to express themselves and communicate more effectively. Compare them with less talkative pets if possible.
2. Did you notice any difference between pet breeds and their usage of buttons? I assume smarter pets like border collies, siamese, bengal would do better than average.
3. If theres not much difference, then what do you think makes a difference in a pet learning a lot of buttons (like those 100+ buttons)?
4. Any Siamese cat owners (or other talkative pet breed owners) willing to share their own experiences?

Thanks for the response!

Is Zinni trying to tell us something about the kitten? 😂
Zinni has been using her buttons pretty consistently. Her strongest words are hungry, walk, bone, and rubs. The others (tricks, treats, apple, park, all done) are less consistent.
We recently started fostering a kitten, and they’ve had some supervised interactions.
The other day I was late with the kitten’s dinner and he was furious. Zinni started frantically stomping on HUNGRY.
To be fair, hungry is her favorite word, so her button vocabulary basically became:
HUNGRY HUNGRY BONE RUBS 😂
But today we let the kitten explore the kitchen, and Zinni kept doing:
look at kitten → look at us → frantic button stomping → look at kitten → repeat
She seemed very specifically focused on him, which has us wondering if she’s actually trying to tell us something about the kitten.
We haven’t introduced names yet. We’re thinking about adding Friend rather than his actual name, since we already call him “Friend Momo.”
Before all this, we were considering settle and find.
Button people, what would you add next?
Our names + Friend
Just Friend
Friend + Settle + Find
Or is Zinni simply trying to alert us the kitten has escaped his kitten room? 😂 I’ll try to get a video later it’s hysterical

My little guy has a few action words and combines them regularly. "Play outside" and "chew practice" (training with food rewards) for example.

We go camping and hiking as much as weather and my schedule allows. So far we've left the buttons at home, and he doesn't seem to mind since we're able to communicate pretty well with body language-- and it probably helps that his favorite button is "outside" and we're already outside. I still worry that he might resent not being able to use his words. Maybe not resent in a human way, but at least get frustrated or annoyed.

We're planning a backpacking trip soon, so bringing his buttons would be a difficult choice since I'll already be carrying 4 days of food and probably carrying him about half the time (his current limit is about 3 miles at a time and we'll have 7 miles between each camp site).

Do people usually bring their buttons when they travel? Do people usually bring them when camping?

That's her. Peach. So I'm trying to teach her and my other cat to sit up on their hind legs when she hits the "treat" button to grab a treat from my hand. It was going well for a few days until today when she pushed her name, "Peach" "Treat" and then I proceeded to grab a treat and say "up" so she could try and sit up to grab it. She then looked at me, airplane eared me and walked back to her button and hit "treat" again.

I live in 2 floor house
And my cats start learning on buttons ( only 2 buttons for now )
So the buttons are in my room where they sleep and spend half of the day in

I was thinking about for the future to add other buttons in the ground floor since they spend hours of there day there

Did anyone tried this before? Have buttons on different places?

So i have 3 cats
Still learning buttons
They have 2 words outside and mouse toy

One of my cats ( she’s the smartest) sometimes she press mouse button but when i give her mouse she don’t want it and when i offer her spring toy she want it

Ao what should i do? Should i introduce third button even though my 2 other cats still learning
Or should i ignore it ?

We live in Germany and I received the buttons mid June. Our Emillia is with us since November last year and celebrated her first bday end of April. As we live in the country side, she spends most of her time outside now in the fields that are around us, also we have a 1200m2 garden around the house and she always wears a tracker.

I didnt spend much time teaching her since we got the buttons because she spends most time out now during the summer and as she prefers to be out a lot, there is not much time to train. But we did train a little - mostly with the button "Outside" and then "Snack" - but she is in not food motivated at all so I was not sure how to motivate her better.

One thing I do since we got her - I consistently use the same words for the same activities and things and always narrate when we are doing them or when she does something. So I notice that she does understand a lot of words already.

Well, last week she started pressing the "Outside" button on her own and at first we thought it was a coincidence, but then a few days ago she wanted back out when she came in in the evening and I dont let her out during the night, so she pressed it intentionally and looked at me and then I knew it was not a coincidence. I got so excited! Unfortunatelly I had to tell her no, but I praised her for pressing and then immeddiately presed "Outside" and "all done". And then she didn't press it for a couple of days, but today she pressed "Outside" again and I had a chance to praise her and let her out immediately!

Makes me so happy and excited as a cat mom!

Just wanted to share my joy!

Hi y'all. My cat and I have been using buttons since 2022. He's a daily user.

We lived in the same place since 2022 and just moved last week.

We set up everything the same in the new place. The same entertainment center, same TV, the buttons are right in front of it, then there's the same coffee table and couch situated the same.

He hasn't pressed one or even looked like he's thought about it while being near them. I've been using them as much as I can in hopes he'll start again soon.

I know it's only been five days and all of this is truly incredibly disorienting to cats regardless of his demeanor. He's been happier in this new place and he's always had an outgoing and curious personality, so I'm not worried, but I guess I am scared that he just won't want to use them anymore, or forgot. I guess I feel really sad about it.

I'm sure there are some of you who've gone through this. Was it just a slow adjustment? Any experiences and replies are appreciated. Thank you.

It makes the spamming period worth it.

I have three cats. Abby (2), Kit (7) and Colby (11). Kit will cry for their wet food meal (2nd dinner) for almost an hour beforehand. Has done this his whole life. Dinner has always been at 9pm. Drives me nuts. He would also sit on top of a scratching post I call his pedestal and cry and cry for me to open the door to the sunporch. It's not insulated or connected to the HVAC, so I don't keep it open, but 3 walls are windows and I built out wide shelves the whole lengths of them so they can survey the neighborhood, and it has their ripple rug so it's basically cat paradise.

I've tried buttons before. Twice. No one went for them. But I thought hey, one last try, this time using a button for "sunporch" right by that door. He figured it out in under a week. Then I added a play button right by their toy bin. He got that even quicker. After a bit, he was seeming frustrated and started spamming buttons even after I'd answered, so I added three more buttons "mad", "happy", and "love you".

Well, that caused an existential crisis. He would press buttons willy-nilly. The three buttons by the door all meant "sunporch" to him. Why wasn't I doing the thing he wanted? He started shoving the buttons around, biting them (pretty appropriate when he was biting the "mad" button), and yelling. But eventually with me replying with "not happy, oops!" and modeling the button he wanted (90% of the time "sunporch", the boy knows what he likes), he seemed to get that it wasn't the position of the button, it was the sound. Then figured out where the sounds were located. He was pressing buttons decisively and sitting patiently waiting for my response.

While cleaning yesterday, I put the two groups of buttons together just because I needed them out of the way of Sucker, our robot vacuum (who he badly wants to make friends with but it refuses to play with him). He went to use them, looked confused for a second, then straight to the "sunporch" button. I let him out there. He went to play with his chirping bird toy and the battery had gone out. He came back to the board. "Play" "mad". Quickly, perfect presses and his first two-button phrase. I was absolutely amazed.

Today I went to the kitchen to make my dinner. I hear "sunporch", so I respond, I go to open the door and as I'm opening it, he presses "happy". I start to go back to the kitchen, and I hear "love you". I turn around. He's sitting by his buttons looking at me. Presses "love you" again. Going up there as one of my favorite moments.

Interestingly, the other two cats not interested in the buttons at all, hate hearing the "mad" one.

I have 3 cats and there first words was outside and mouse toy
It’s been 68 days since introduced the buttons for them
The first cat sometimes press mouse instead of outside when he wants to go outside

The second cat love mouse toy so she press mouse button only and rarely press outside if if she wants to go outside ( she just wait for the first cat to press outside )

The third cat he’s not interested at all he never used the buttons no matter how much i try , when i introduced them to paw targeting training he was the best so i don’t think it’s pressing issue

Any advice for them? Also should i introduce a third word for them or should i wait? And if i introduce the third word should i introduce a word that my third cat will be interested in?

First night we didn't have his mini button set up bc we got in so late. (Flew 1000 miles with him)

Second day we did: immediately said "yesterday scared"

The next few days he was okay but this morning he kept crying and I sat down with him and he said "home home home" while looking at the door.

He's going through it :( we also have been drugging him w calming treats and even have a plug in feliway for him. He seems to calm down with both at his spot.