I’ve been seeing a dog food ad that includes one of those pads with the buttons that talk, I was curious to hear about them from people who actually have them.
After a year, my reasonably smart cats (potty training them to use the toilet took 3 weeks) have learned that the “outside” makes me open the door, because they rush towards it when I push it. But they never use the button themselves.
Then is there a benefit over just saying outside?
The idea is to teach the cat to press the buttons to communicate.
Teach the cat? :3
Teach the cat.
We got a set of these for our puppy, and she picked up on them pretty quick. We’ve got walk, food, play, and outside. It’s not perfect though. Like she’s supposed to hit the walk button when she needs to go potty, but occasionally instead she’ll take a shit on the floor and then hit the button. “Look dad I pooped on the floor so we can go outside now!” And I feel like a play button may have backfired cuz she slaps that fucker all day long. I mean they aren’t going to train your pet for you but they are a useful tool. I’m much happier that she’s smacking the button instead of clawing at the front door.
Never used those buttons, but my idiot cat does have his ways to tell me what he wants, and some of them are a bit abstract. For example, I tried to teach him to “knock” on the window when he wants to be let out / in so he won’t wail at the top of his lungs in the middle of the night when he wants me to open the window for him. It worked after a few weeks, but what he learned is “knocking on glass = human lets me out” so he will sometimes go knock on the glass door of the cabinet instead and then make a beeline for the window once I open it for him. When I play dumb and open the cabinet instead, he’ll just knock harder or THEN move to the window. He isn’t interested in the actual cabinet or its contents at all.
Tapping a button to let the human know what you want can’t be that much more different / abstract for a pet than tapping on glass. You just have to be consistent in showing them the right behaviour and reward it with the correct action whenever they do it right, so they eventually make the connection.
I have those buttons for my dog. He is a Red heeler and German Shepard mix, and is quite clever.
He pretty much learned to press them immediately, however the only ones he seems to use without prompting is the treat jar and the play buttons.
The rest like hungry, thirsty, and potty he has to be coaxed into using first.
Does he do other actions when he wants food/water/outside?
I’m picturing a dog annoyed that it has to use the buttons instead of being able to point at the water bowl 😄
Our dogs seemed to understand what they were, but weren’t interested in using them. We mostly had workable signals in place already. I think they just found the buttons unnecessary. And our husky mix comes pretty close to talking anyway.
Once your pet already has you trained they aren’t going to want start over. “Teaching an old human new tricks” is an idiom for a reason.
I must be an idiot. When I read the title, I first thought it was a non-native English speaker asking about people who had Tamagotchis back in the day…
As in… a talking button you keep for a pet, not a button FOR your pet to use.
🙃
Ha! That’s pretty funny. I remember those things.
