Teaching your cat to use speech buttons
You may have seen the amazing work done by Christina Hunger, who has been teaching her dog to communicate via speech buttons, and I’ve had a ton of people ask me - is it possible to teach cats to do the same thing? The answer is YES. Basically, this type of training is modeling behavior, combined with operant conditioning (reward based only, please!). Watch the video above for basics on how to set up your buttons and get started! Essentially:
pick your word : nouns/verbs are best (lets avoid feeling/emotion words)
record your voice saying the word and make sure it is clear and loud
mark your button (available here from Learning Resources) in some way (remember cats don’t see colors as we do and may need help distinguishing buttons from each other)
push your button every time you being / are doing the activity the button word represents
consistency is KEY! modeling takes up to and over a month for most animals to learn. be patient.
Our cats, especially Steve, are super communicative already and are very good at telling us their basic wants and needs. I decided to start the training with Steve’s highest value item - going outside (into his fenced in and supervised yard). Since he was born, he has been communicating his desire to go outside by leading us to the door, screaming, jumping at the handle and even opening the door itself (if the deadbolt isn’t locked). I placed the “outside” button in front of the door and hit it with my foot every time I would open the door. After 4 days, he got it, and started hitting the button essentially all day every day when he was inside and the door was closed. The orange button you see on the floor is the “eat'“ button, which he NEVER uses - he knows the difference and makes sure to only hit “outside.”
We are about two weeks in and Steve is still the only cat in our gang that has learned to use the buttons - and that’s ok. We have our hands full with him asking to go outside and/or play all day, and I’m thrilled he is even MORE communicative than usually and has the additional enrichment he needs. Next up for him: “no” and “later.” :)
In this other article I show you how you can teach your cat to combine words.
Click here to visit my button tutorial site, Talk To The Beans, for more info and video guides!