Catch Jake in action on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Q. So Doug, who is this learner of yours?
Jake was rescued from the Humboldt County Animal shelter as a young puppy. He was named by the shelter and already responded to it, so I never changed it. From the first hour I had him, he took to training right away. We have an early instagram story that shows him nearly mastering “LEAVE IT” very quickly. I knew I had a smart dog, and he looked like a German Shepard. When I got the DNA test results done, it turns out he had some purebred relatives and was nearly 40% Australian Cattle dog and 30% Doberman Pinscher. He is attached to me wherever I go and incredibly smart. He has the Doberman nasal whine and the excited mouthy energy of a Cattle Dog. Imagine 80 lbs of Cattle Dog/Doberman energy ALL the time with a very curious nose. He will try to smell the food you are putting in your mouth, but respectful enough that he’ll never take it. There is just no thing as personal space to Jake.
Q. What was your learner's first button?
“OUTSIDE”. I was lucky enough that he learned this very quickly.
Q. How long did it take for him to press his first button?
He already knew the word [OUTSIDE] and I placed the button near the door. After modeling it a couple of times, he picked it up straight away. To this day, it is his most frequently used button.
Q. What have the buttons revealed about your learner that you wouldn’t have known without the buttons?
That his intelligence is way deeper than I originally gave him credit for. I knew he was a smart dog, but he made me realize that he processes more information with spoken language than I could have imagined.
Q. What inspired you to do button teaching?
Originally, Stella and Christina Hunger were the initial inspiration to see if Jake was a talker.
Q. What challenges have you faced with button teaching?
Jake has had both of his hips replaced due to the femoral caps being cracked sometime when he was a puppy. Between both surgeries and lengthy recovery, several months he was either confined to his crate or restricted to a puppy pen with not a lot of movement. This not only interrupted the button training with a life changing event, but there was a week or so where he was just on medication and had no access to his buttons. When I did create the “puppy pen” and brought in his buttons, I recorded with my phone out of curiosity what would be the first thing he said. The result was incredibly shocking!... talked about more down below.
Q. What’s your funniest button moment?
I was in the middle of a business Zoom and Jake wasn’t happy that I was working. He proceeded to hit his “ALL DONE” button repeatedly followed by “OUTSIDE” and “PARK” to let me know he didn’t want me in a meeting any more. Sometimes if I have my headphones on, he doesn’t understand that I’m talking to someone else. He does, instantly recognize when I’m wrapping up a meeting however.
Q. What’s your most surprising button moment?
As posted in a Reel on socials, Jake’s first button press when getting his buttons into his “puppy pen” during surgery recovery was, “NO WALK JAKE, JAKE”. It was a very early multiple button push and so affirming for me. He was either telling me that he can’t walk or that I wasn’t taking him for walks, but either interpretation told me that he was directly communicating about the surgery.
Q. What’s your favorite button moment?
There was a time in his recovery where he was on regular medication. The paste used to wrap a pill was something I started associating with the word “OUCH”. He only got this type of treat when he was getting medication and it was never a problem with Jake. One time I forgot to give it to him and he went to his buttons and asked for an “OUCH TREAT”, and to this day, that is how I refer to his medication.
Q. How have buttons changed your relationship with your learner?
I feel like Jake has another way to communicate with me. He has more agency in something as simple as telling me when he would prefer to eat or where he wants to go. It strengthens the bond between us.
Q. What advice would you give to others who are interested in teaching their learners to use buttons?
Two things that have really worked for us is that if there is solid recognition of a word when said, it turns into a button. Especially if it’s spoken often. The second thing is to let the button growth happen organically and change at the learner’s pace. That really worked for Jake and I.
Q. How did you go about teaching your learner to press their first button?
The first one was “OUTSIDE”. He knew the word. He would respond when I asked. I simply modeled the button that was next to the door, and the first time he pressed it, he was showered with praise and let outside immediately. After a couple of times, he got it.
Q. How did you address challenges you faced?
Having his learning be interrupted by surgery was a big challenge and we’re kind of hitting a plateau right now. We struggle with multiple choice answers, and we’ve just ordered some new buttons to give some more words that he can consider. We’re hoping the additional words help create more expression.
