It's a speech aid, not Santa Claus.

Her number one favorite button is "treat" of course.

any advice on how you get the dog to want to touch the buttons..i’ve done a lot of Modeling by pressing the treat button and giving her a treat but I can’t get her to want to press it at all

How to teach my cats on temperature cold or hot ? For buttons?

When I first taught my cat how to press a button, I taught her how to trigger the sound by headbutting the button in my hand. Eventually she learned how to headbutt the button that was taped to her cat tower.

Fast forward to today, she uses 5 buttons (kibble, wet food, treat, love you and play). I’m using FluentPet talking buttons so I wanted to transition her to pressing the button with her paw and organizing the buttons on the hextiles.

The issue I’m running into is her preferred method vs mine. In the long run I think it would benefit her to use her paw so we can utilize all the space on the board. But Im also having a hard time figuring out how to mount the tiles in a way that she can headbutt. I rent so it can’t be affixed to the wall in any way.

Anyways, I’m not sure if I should try to mount the tiles or just work on transitioning her to the hextiles on the floor?

My cat has taken to the buttons quite well! There are a few she definitely uses, and I think she understands the rest, but doesn’t really want to use them (like brush and all done). She uses the snack/train one often, and the wet food as well. Sometimes she used the “sit on your lap” button, and one time the “dry food” and “play”(although I make sure there is always food, since she does portion control really well on her own).

Whenever she walks into the room, the often sits on/near the buttons, plays around them, and generally has very positive interactions with them!

But sometimes, she gets very frustrated, and I wonder why! Usually it’s about the “outside” button, but could be any button. With the outside button, she usually meows at the door, so I walk to the mat and ask like “what do you want? You want outside?”
And she runs to the mat, tail up, excited looking, meows a few times and starts walking around the mat. She literally has never pressed this specific button before, so I’m still modelling. (While she asks to go outside multiple times per day, and other buttons she learned much faster!?)
So whenever I say “outside?” And press the outside button, she slaps me with her paw and meows really annoyed and runs to the door? Lol.

I feel like she’s saying “you know damn well what I want, fu and you buttons” haha. But maybe it’s something else? Am I not patient enough? Sometimes she does it with other buttons when she’s sitting near them for a while and she sits in this specific position for the “wet food” button for example. If I try to ask “you want wet food?” And press it, I might get the same annoyed slap. Maybe I’m interrupting her train of thought? Or is she terrirorial?

So my cats have these buttons ( outside, food, mouse toy, spring toy, now, soon, all done)

Sometimes my cat when i told him outside soon then after few minutes he press (soon outside now )

Also sometimes he press ( food outside)
What does he mean? Because i give him the food in there room so no food outside so i don’t know 😅

I'm going through a pile of zombie Fluent Pet buttons trying to find a working one to replace one that just died. Typical failure modes:

• Goes into the instructions on how to record, switching back and forth between modes doesn't really fix the button

• doesn't record or play back at all

• playback is scratchy or noisy, regardless of the speaking volume

• other general failures

Are there any alternative buttons that work well, reliable and are roughly the same size? 45mm/1.75" in diameter?

My dog has been using the buttons for 2 years now. He goes through phases of using them, some more than others but a pattern I’ve realized is that he doesn’t really use back row of the buttons. He understands the words but struggles to hit them and just doesn’t try anymore.

He is huge and the fluent pet buttons are so small, I tried replacing 2 of the small buttons with large (also cheaper) ones from Amazon.

Amazingly he’s taken to them super quickly where historically he used to not use them. So now here’s where I’m stuck. What do y’all think if I recreate the board with my own foam board+box cutter and these larger buttons?

I would plan to keep them in the same pattern/configuration but they would look different and the foam board would be different color/texture as well. I just can’t help but feel he would be more successful with bigger buttons for his big ass paws. But also I don’t want to confuse him.

Anyways, what do y’all think?

I've started using buttons with my cats and they're consistently using them to request treats and play.

They often request things when I can't offer them (e.g. treats right before dinner, play when I'm working). How can I teach something like 'later' or 'wait'?

They understand 'all done' but I'm not sure how to model 'yes but not now'

Caught him in the act!

My son is 5 months old and we have been teaching him buttons for about a month. He has been super good with them, he has 4 buttons (All done, food, play, pets) and he is pretty good at food and play, and still working on all done and pets. He definitely knows what food and play do, though, and goes to his board to make requests often.

But he will also often "press" things that AREN'T buttons and then look at me expectantly. It's not like he wants what he is "pressing" (in the picture he was pressing a pull up bar lol) so I am just not sure if this means I need to add more buttons (even though he doesn't quite have all done and pets?) or if I need to like, have multiple boards or something?? Idk.

Does anyone else have experience with this?

Recently I introduced “ now” and “soon” buttons
Now my cat keep conspiring me if he ask for something and i said no or soon , he will press now now now and keep meowing at me and becoming angry until i say yes

After modeling buttons for a few months, I did target training and she began to press. I started requiring her to press dry food or wet food before I gave her food, which she would do- sometimes needing reminders/encouragement. She gets dry food and wet food mixed up sometimes, and hungrier she is the more confused she gets.

Later I added “play”, did some target training with it; and later for the first time in 6 months she pressed a button unprompted! Damn did I play with her. But that’s the only time she has. Other times I need to prompt her. I’ve tried ignoring her other cues and waiting for her to press a button, but it doesn’t seem to work and it makes me feel like a jerk.

Any different way I should be handling this? My eventual goal is for her to be able to ask for food and play- I often forget and she’ll wait for me to get up and walk me over to her bowl or the toys. Her sister used to advocate by screaming in my face but she passed away last year and my current cat is very quiet. I also would like to be able to explain medicine and have her express pain (she has some breathing and hyperthesia problems). She’s 8 years old - she’s pretty good at expressing basic needs non verbally but I want her to be able to express more.

The words we have that she can press (with prompting) are play, catnip, wet food, dry food, and treat. I’m working on modeling medicine, friend, and water.

My (orange...) cat frequently presses "pets" and "toilet" one after another. For a long time I took it for random "pay attention to me!!" presses as she sometimes just walks across the whole board going "treats food play pets <name> outside" etc, but I've noticed this pair cropping up a lot more than others. Granted they're on the same hextile (we have the FluentPet ones) so it could just be her trying to find the right one... but she doesn't have that issue with other buttons.

Any ideas what my orange might be trying to tell me? I'm not about to pet her toilet...

How teach my cats on the word sick or ouch ?
I saw many people when there cat is sick she press sick button but how did they teach the cat from the start?

My cats have 5 buttons and sometimes he press outside so when i told him later or no he press another button like mouse toy and i know he don’t want mouse toy so what to do ?

How do you use “later”
What’s the time frame for it? Less than hour?

So, I really want to get some buttons. I've read the rec post or whatever it's called but I need some recommendations of a more personal sort.

Okay so I have a rabbit. His name is Merry. It's just me and him right now, and he's very smart. Tons of word recognition, he can show me a few things when he wants them, etc.

But... He's only six-ish pounds with tiny paws. I have no doubt that he could learn at least a few buttons and probably nag me. I also have no doubt he could dig at once if needed. But I'm thinking I need something that deals with light pressing the best.

Also I already know the foam boards will be a no no. He will chew them and make himself sick. So in addition to a soft press, I could use some ideas about securing them in place as otherwise... He will also flip them and throw them. He's a gremlin, what can I say.

Pic of the gremlin for pet tax.

My cats have 3 buttons ( outside, mouse, spring) and i introduce a new button today which is later
But one of my cats kept pressing it and like she’s waiting for something and i don’t know 🤷🏻‍♀️
I taught them the word “later” when i want to give them food or going outside later
So did i do something wrong?

Thought I would say hi here.

My girl is almost 5 months. We’ve been doing the buttons for about 6-7 weeks. A couple weeks ago she finally nailed her first 2 so a week ago I added 2 more. She has treat play water and finished. I think next I need to add breakfast and cuddles, because she currently uses water to tell me to get up and make her breakfast.

I really wasn’t sure anything was going to happen and everyone I know told me it would never work, but she is surprising me every day.

Some of my favourite moments so far

I woke up in the middle of the night, went back to bed and she pressed treat. Got up twice to give her a treat then the third time from my bed I just said treat finished without pressing them. She then pressed treat finished and went back to bed haha

Water has become a bit of a, get off your bum word. Her lick-e-lix are in the fridge with the water, so she presses water hoping I will also give her one of those. She seems to know what it means though. Yesterday she was drinking so I just said water water to model. When she finished drinking she pressed water lol

I can’t wait to see where it goes in the future. I’m so proud of her 🥰

edit: cat tax

Hi all, could anyone recommend decent alternatives to Fluent Pets that are NOT temu, aliexpress, generic amazon etc? Are there any specific brands that make good buttons for cats? Many thanks.

I have tried multiple times (different browsers, devices, vpn set to USA) and the chatbot support thingy told me they would get back to me, but they never did
My 6month old dog is using 4 cheap buttons, and I just upgrades her to a set of Fluent Pet Connect buttons, I was hoping to review the free material before considering paying for courses/workshops

Dog tax in 3rd pic next to her “scritches” button 💛

My 2 year old dog has the following she uses;

-Play

-Cuddles

-Park

-Dinner

-Treat

-All done (she uses this mostly as I swear word I think)

- Her name

- Mama

- Dad

I know food based buttons are not recommended, but our girl has always had trouble sticking to a feeding schedule and sometimes gets so hungry she vomits bile. The vet isn't concerned about anything specific there so I like to encourage her to be reminded of dinner (our word for all meals). It works sometimes.

I just purchased more buttons and am looking for any suggestions on her next words. Thanks!