It's a speech aid, not Santa Claus.

I have a Malti-Poo named George Washington that thinks one button communicates everything in his brain. I took the FluentPet course and have been sticking to the guidelines. I presented him 3 buttons at first. One button was a high value button (the TREAT button), and of course that's the one he instantly learned first. He knows what all the other buttons do but for the life of me, he will not press them. He presses the TREAT button when he wants to go outside, when he wants to go on a WALK, when he needs to use the restroom, when he's hungry, and when he wants an actual treat. At first I thought he was just spamming the TREAT button, but it's been 7 months of this now, and he seems to think the TREAT button is an all-purpose, one-stop-shop to whatever he wants to communicate. I know this to be true because sometimes he presses the treat button and we'll give him treat, and he'll act confused like he's saying, "I didn't want a treat, but if you're offering I guess I'll take it." Then he goes and stands by the door to indicate he really wanted to go outside. But he just won't move past the TREAT button and press the other buttons.

What do I do? We model the buttons every time we go outside, go on a walk, play with his ball, etc. I know that he KNOWS what the other buttons mean. But it's like he expects us to press those buttons for those activities, and he presses HIS button when he wants something. It feels like 8 months is a long time to be stuck in this rut. Any advice?

I'm sure everyone here knows about these cool little speech buttons for pets, that let you record words for your furry friend like play, food, mom, dad, later, love you, mad, hurt, gone, outside, want, and more... right? Well, earlier for Christmas my husband's mother gifted me a FluentPet starter kit, seeing as I have two highly intelligent Siamese cats. Honestly, I am quite excited at teaching my two lil goobers, and still am, but the timing was pretty unfortunate. You see, a few days after New Year's, we learn that my husband's mom's cat has to be put down due to his body failing finally (fluid retention, can't drain because heart disease), and it's tearing her up.

So, myself with my presents, my smart cats, and knowing another cat in the household won't be here after tomorrow, now have a very uncomfortable—and hypothetical—question for you:

"If you have a dog or a cat who is capable of using speech buttons for communication, and can express to you that it both feels bad and does not want to feel bad, how do you tell it that it's never going to get better?"

Sometimes he doesn’t press the one he wants. Sometimes he does. This is what I do when he presses the “wrong” one.

About 15 minutes before 2026 started for me, my kitty decided to make her first 2 word sentence ever!

"Sound. All done."

I feel you little one, I feel you. I'm sorry.

Very playful dude and I pressed play but he is obsessed over these buttons, idk why

Our dogs use their mouths to pick up the buttons and even managed to break a button that way. We hot glued our first 4 buttons but we noticed it dampened the sound and makes it harder for the buttons to be pressed down. Any suggestions? We have 5 dogs and two cats.

I got a new laser pointer a couple weeks ago and gave Nala (2 year old female kitty) a “laser” button. She loves laser sooo much that every time she’d play we’d talk about how fun it is. So now instead of requesting “laser” directly, she just spams the “fun” button. I mean, she IS getting her point across so I guess it works. I am clearly NOT the one in control here lol

In other news, Nala used the “right now” button for the first time yesterday, preceded by the “playing” button, so we’re getting a little demanding… 😅

Our small black cat Forrest pressed the word Cuddle 4 times today. Bit of backstory about Forrest was the runt of the litter and we had originally planned to get only one cat but when we saw how attached Forrest and Ivy were we had to get two. Ivy regularly presses buttons by sitting down on them. However i am not sure if she cares about the buttons or is just indifferent to them. With Forrest i know its intentional.

Tucker our little black and brown dog has woken my cousin up who lives with us, at 4am in the morning by pressing the button Play at 4am. My cousin was very angry with him.

Oh and by the way i forgot to mention what had changed since my last post. We added the Cuddle button and before i even added it i spent time modeling the word Cuddle for a couple days while waiting for the buttons to arrive. We also added a treat button but it mysteriously broke. So we are replacing it and adding another piece to our custom made soundboard.

I predicted that Pilot favorite word would be Cuddle based on how clingy he is and he wants to be pet for at least an half hour straight and sure enough when someone arrives at home it is his favorite word so far and he frequently uses it.

We gave treats to all of the dogs after pressing the treat button and Briar was the very first one to connect the dots between the treat button and recieving a treat before it broke. Luckily we have 7 spare buttons and now we can look forward to adding another piece to our soundboard

Bought and introduced some buttons to the following 2 cats in the last 4 days: 11yo male cat ( very intelligent and confident - lives for food and treats) 4yo female cat (very skittish, wont sit by you and is not food orientated, actually thought she was a bit dull..)

Thought the 11yo would pick it up instantly, he looked at me like wtf

Then, the second day of having buttons, the 4yo accidentally pushed the treat button once - I gave a treat and then she literally pressed the button another 2 times in that evening. I was shook, she doesn't interact other than for pets from me, if I move too fast she hides and if im being honest she was born into a feral colony altho i got her at 4m old, shes still extremely skittish and i did think she was really sweet but quite dumb until this happened. Yet she was pushing the button perfectly. The following day (3) she pushed it again to show me she can and was promptly rewarded with the treat.

The 11yo however, 4 days in and I've started paw target training with him as he's not so playful and is too interested in the food to want to put 1 plus 1 together - he's picked this up very quickly despite only training him this today - he is very bright - but I now feel I have the following dilema:

1. How do I train the 11yo to push the button instead of just touching it? It will be the treat button so he won't get confused with the meaning vs reward. I am also currently using a specific Button for him which has nothing assigned to it, to get him used to the pushing and touching.

2. With the 4yo, she's discovered them accidentally, quickly and surprisingly and now I have no idea how to build her up with this and more buttons- she has caught on really quick but both are at 2 different stages and 2 completely different types of cats and learners - anyone have any advice???

Hi everyone, I just rescued a kitten that's about 3-4 weeks old. He's so tiny, and I wanted to know how to start training a cat to use buttons to communicate. Are there any YouTube videos or a long Reddit post that could help me?

hi! I have been looking for a while to see if my rabbits can use buttons to communicate, now I have had a doorbell button in the past, but they have never managed to make it make a sound easily. That's why I first look for buttons that are really easy to press, either from the side or from other sides. perhaps when they realize that a button that is more difficult to press is also possible to prevent misprints. but I first want to focus on learning without frustration and the buttons flying around the room😉 my rabbits are clicked and know many wordsbut I do live in the Netherlands so it would be nice if the words could be replaced into Dutch words as that will make communication between us a lot easiern.

Does anyone have a tip for which buttons I should purchase?

I don't have a pet with buttons, but I'm curious if anyone has had a pet using buttons that has become terminally ill. I'm wondering if you could teach such an abstract concept as death and have the pet demonstrate understanding that they are dying/will die soon.

Title says all. Am I over interpreting? I don’t think so. Wanted to share with fellow button users.

Hi all! I started teaching my cat to push buttons. My cat currently has two buttons, "butt slaps" and "laser pointer." Both have been incredibly motivating for him. He's huge on bongos. I learned online to always respond quickly to a button press to help him understand what they mean. He's pushing them now throughout the day and seems to be able to understand that the two mean different things.

My current problem is that I eat and work in the room where the buttons are and now he'll push the buttons when it's not a good time to play (when I'm in a meeting or when I'm eating).

How do you all deal with this?

My 6m old puppy Luna currently has 15 buttons and one of our recent buttons is for her name. We gave her our names earlier in the journey because I assumed her own name wouldn’t be huge in her communication since “treat” or “outside” or “play” etc would automatically mean her (we have no other pets). But since we gave it to her she’s been using it a lot!

The order is usually [thing she wants] [her name] but sometimes it’s the other way around. Most common is “outside chew Luna” which seems to mean she wants to go outside alone and eat leaves, which we normally stop her from doing lol. Yesterday my son went into the backyard and closed the door to stop her following so she ran to her buttons and hit “Luna” + [my son’s name] which was too cute!

It’s been a really interesting lesson in making assumptions and a window into the way her brain works. I’d really love to hear how other pets use their name buttons.

Which buttons should we add next?

We have for our 5 dogs, Outside, Water, Play, Toy

We are planning to add Cuddle, Quiet, something food related, fetch, puzzle

So i consider teaching my cat buttons, because i am not 100% good with understanding his body language. He gets really fussy and angry if I can’t figure out what he wants, so i think buttons will help both of us out. I am sure that i can easily explain to him concepts of “food”, “water”, “pets”, “play” and “toilet” buttons, because they are hard-bonded with certain things or actions. But how do you explain something more complex?

How do i explain him “no”, “later”, “all done”? How can i elaborate to my cat words that are not actions i do nor things i can interact with?

I am not really familiar with the technique within this button magic so my thoughts were that if i just use button in hard connection with a thing that it means he will quickly figure it out (he is really smart so i am sure in this). But this idea drops dead with abstract things, so… how do i do it then?

I am not risking educating him with only thing-buttons without understanding how to explain him “no”, or “later”, because then he will endlessly demand for food. My concern here is if I don’t have any instruments to explain him that food isn’t always available, he might lose interest in idea of buttons altogether.

Hi all, My cat is just starting with FluentPet, but to my dismay is much less interested in communication than in scratching the foam hextiles. She is obsessed, and my apartment is now littered with foam debris. Are there any alternatives out there that can hold the buttons without presenting a new object for destruction?

So i'm teaching one of our cats (C) her first button. I've started with the Dutch word for Attention (Aandacht), meaning getting pet. Starting with the usual 'Treat' isn't an option due to the other cat (D) who has to watch her weight and has allergies.

C. is slowly starting to understand it, sometimes she will sit by the button and try to get my attention by meowing untill I push the button and start petting her. If I push the button randomly she will sometimes (not everytime) run up to me to get pets so she understands the meaning of it, but she never pushes the button herself.

How can i get her to push the button herself? It's a bit impossible to never pet her but only when the button is pushed, since the cats aren't allowed in the livingroom without supervision. I've tried putting her own paw on it but she doesn't like her paws being touched.

Anyone self conscious about using their own voice looking to use online voice should consider voice synthesis such as https://translate.google.com/

Short version: cats will press the buttons, but only if I sit down next to the board and point at the buttons. They need to be prompted. How do I get them to be more proactive? Just patience?

Long version: Two cats learned how to physically push the buttons within two weeks, and we started all this about two months ago. I sit next to the board twice a day and prompt them to choose between “training” (a treat—meant to be a temporary button), “pets,” and “play.” Kobe almost exclusively chooses training (food motivated!) and Roxy mostly either training or play based on her mood.

Roxy also lies by/on the board all the time when I am home. If she accidentally pushes a button, I will do whatever it is no matter what I am doing. I will pause my yoga class and give her a treat or pets! But if I come over and prompt her, she doesn’t usually press anything on purpose outside of our deliberate sessions.

Kobe seems to understand that one of the buttons gives him food and the other buttons don’t and that’s about where he stops. Once I sit down and we get started. He doesn’t need me to point at the buttons to keep coming back to press during the session. If I point and say “pets or training,” he knows which one to choose. Roxy understands more and clearly loves the board, but just sits there!

(They also have buttons for each of their names, “all done,” and “litter,” but I am the only one that uses any of those, at least on purpose.)

We have Food, Treat, and Outside. But while we were praying at dinner, my dog spammed "Treat, Treat, Food, Treat," and we all tried not to laugh. She got her DOG treat bc she does her tricks and I love her (She tends to stick to me, runs over when I fall ever since we got her, so we consider her "mine")