It’s Easier to Teach Your Dog To Communicate If You Follow This Guide
My sister has three chaotic dogs at her suburban home in Pennsylvania, and dog talking buttons would be a dream come true for her. The home has a one acre of land surrounding it, perfect for her dogs to play outside freely with the help of the invisible fence. The problem she faced was never knowing if any of them had to go outside to the bathroom.
She used a simple method of training: Next to the main door she hangs a long rope with a bell. And through ongoing repetition, each dog was trained to ring the bell every time they wanted to go outside. When I first saw this, I was completely shocked and amazed. Why didn’t my parents do this growing up with my dogs? It would have saved many unfortunate accidents.
This is a simple trick that would be a beginners level to teach your dog a new trick.
Talking Buttons Are All The Rage
If you haven’t seen any social media posts with dogs communicating, it’s really fun and inspiring to watch and best of all, any breed of dog can do this! Yes, some may pick things up a little faster than others; but you can start with the basics and work your way up. It’s all about the time YOU take to help train your dog correctly.
The market is flooded with talking buttons for dogs. There are many different sizes you can find on Amazon.
Basic Training for Talking Buttons for Dogs
The idea of training may seem like a lot of work, but I’m a big believer in baby steps. Every day, set an alarm when you will have less distractions so you can spend just a little time training. Don’t get frustrated and remember that it will take time. Keep the words simple and you can expand, just like Bunny the talking dog.
Use Positive Reinforcement with Rewards
Everybody, especially dogs, love to be rewarded. By creating a fixed reward system in addition to a genuine smile and praise, your best friend will pick up more and more commands sooner than you think. Some of the easier tasks to begin with are:
- Go bathroom
- Time to eat
- Go for a walk
- Pet me
You may not even realize it, but those moments when you say “Walk?” to them, do they perk up and start to jump around? Or how about when you associate the word treat? This connection shows you that they can associate very easily, so adding the Dog Talking Button commands will just replace the word commands.
Keep the Buttons Near the Location
While doing your button training, you can choose to lay out the buttons in a cluster like Bunny the Talking Dog or place a button near the door for bathroom, near the bowl for eat, etc.. The association will be much easier for your pup to understand.
Be the Leader and Do the Commands First
Your dog will find the task much easier to do with repetition of you doing it first. For example, if you already have a way of saying “Go for a walk?”, start by saying the words first near the door, then press the button. Follow through with the action.
Do this action daily and you can start to give your dog a feel for what it’s like by pressing the buttons. Take their paw and press it on the button, then you can say “Go for a walk?”. Repeat this process and eventually try the process without saying “Go for a walk?”. That button press will be learned, it’s just a matter of having them comfortable to press it. It’s very crucial that if they press that button, you obey it and follow through.
Additional Training Suggestions
There are different ways you can approach the training. Pick a method and stick to it, there are multiple ways to accomplish the same task. As long as you provide the consistency and dedication, you’ll have your dog using the talking buttons in no time. Below is a method that focuses on getting your dog to click on the buttons first, which may be another method to consider.
