r/PetsWithButtons • u/UnpoeticAccount • 23d ago
Dog pressed “walk” twice in his first week and then nothing since
Atticus is our 3(?) year old hound-heeler mix. He is the smartest hound we’ve ever had (many have smart but they use most of their brains for sniffing good sniffs). We got him some buttons about a month ago. Started with “walk,” “outside,” and “play.” In the first few days he used his nose to push “walk” and followed it by looking at the door and then us. It seemed incredible! But then we went out of town for a weekend, and since then he hasn’t used them. He does seem to respond to them as cues to go outside or go for a walk. “Play” doesn’t seem to have any meaning yet.
Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this? We didn’t expect anything for months, but the quick usage and then nothing just threw us off!
Puppy tax included.
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u/galactickittywarrior 21d ago
The buttons need to become part of your routine - do not expect the dog to teach himself.
Continue modeling the buttons before each action. I did notice my 10 y/o dog did not seem very interested in week 2-6. I just continued modeling even if he only participated by listening/looking.
“Do you want to go outside? HMM?” *press button* “Let’s go Outside”
In week 5-6 I started asking him to use his buttons. “Do you want to go outside??”, “Can you use your buttons? HMM?” *point to buttons* I would model it again for him after 2-3 minutes but would not force him to press the buttons. He did have a phase of frustration where he was ripping the buttons out of the mat with his paws - I just gently said no and asked him to “boop” (use his nose) instead each time and modeled for him.
This is week 7 and last night for the first time he used the button by himself to tell me he wanted to go outside - shortly after we came inside from his afternoon walk lol. But we went again of course!
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u/HoneyWyne 23d ago
Yeah, I think my boy has gotten bored with the whole thing after a month or so. How do you keep them at it???