I have a question. I've had dogs for much of my life, although right now I'm dogless :(
I trained my dogs to hold their pee until specific times, when dog walks were scheduled. There were enough routine dog walks each day so my dogs didn't suffer, as far as I could tell, and I was free to do my tasks without being interrupted by unexpected requests by doggie to go out. I don't think I'd want my dog to be able to push a button or ring a bell and expect me to respond immediately.
Thoughts?
That's totally fine, everyone definitely figures out the best system for having their dog relieve themselves. Some people use bells, now some people use buttons, some people have a schedule their dog has to work with, some people hire dog walkers in the middle of the day, some people use potty pads or grass patches inside.. I'm sure there are more options too. My vet says her dogs stand by the door to indicate they need to go out and will whine if she doesn't notice soon enough.
My previous dog Zoey came to us pretty much box trained, and we stuck with that her whole life. I decided I wanted to train Sookie to go outside but also might add in some pad training later for the winter weekends in Maine as it will be a lot more difficult to go outside a bunch at the ski condo where we are on an upper level, and I'm betting she isn't going to love uber cold Maine winter at first haha.
Some points of clarity for our current situation:
1) Sookie is almost 7 months old and I'd say around 90% housebroken/potty trained, but I feel it's good to keep reinforcing because really you don't consider a dog fully potty trained until they haven't had an accident in several months and that isn't the case yet given her age and we haven't even had her 4 months yet.
2) She was most recently going out when I would bring her (I work from home) and maybe asking a couple of times outside of that. Usually she actually has to go to the bathroom and occasionally she just wants to go outside. And then..
3) She unexpectedly went into heat 2 DAYS before her spay appointment a couple of weeks ago. Suddenly she is peeing gosh I'd say double and somedays triple the amount she was before. This seems to be small marking pees outside to spread her scent from what I've read. Should go back to normal after her heat cycle. She will also be spayed in September now as the vet wants to wait 6-8 weeks from the end of her cycle. So this is driving a lot currently, though I think she's also super excited about the buttons too. I'm happy to go out and keep her marking out of the house, not that I'm sure if she'd be driven to do it inside or not biologically versus outside.
For anyone who wants to use buttons with their dogs, there is no set vocabulary to use. There are suggestions for what has worked easiest to start for others, but also that you should use what works for your situation and what is motivating to your dog as well. Some people have no food related buttons, and others eventually have a bunch to get more specific as to what sort of treat their dog wants at a given time. Some might not use an outside button because they choose not to and have another way to deal with that, or even because it makes no sense logistically based on where they live etc. Regardless of which buttons you choose to start with, it seems important that at the beginning you use words where you can try and respond to them as much as possible to reinforce the idea that they press a button and this great thing happens (without treats unless it's a food related button you are working on).. this helps further intrinsic desire by the animal to do it again and then learn more and more ways to communicate with you. Once they have the concept pretty well though you do want to then introduce parameters because no it is certainly not possible or desirable to constantly have buttons being spammed all day long. haha So I have an "all done" button that I am going to work with. When we get more advanced I plan to also follow others who are using time concepts with their animals. So "now" is now obviously, "soon" might mean not right now but within 30 mins we'll go do that thing you want, "later" might mean within a few hours this will happen, "tomorrow" etc. That's obviously a higher level more abstract concept to get accross and will take more time, but I've seen lots of dogs using these concepts in seemingly appropriate contexts.
This is definitely something to consider if you go along this path before starting. If you want to communicate with your dog (or another pet) in this way, you are somewhat choosing to leave behind the blissful ignorance of enforcing your convenience and routines on them and just assuming that they are completely content with that because they get to be with you and have no strong individual opinions of their own. Because you may end up finding that they actually aren't and just couldn't pipe up with their opinions, desires, and preferences before because there was no way to. Or they might be letting you know in ways you don't understand. I saw a discussion on this in my reading and it's quite interesting to think about ethically. Some people get really annoyed with the button spamming and take them away at times etc. Apparently some people will even do that to their human children who are learning to use AAC devices to speak. This was compared by a speech pathologist as if you are placing a piece of tape over the mouth of a speaking child to shut them up when they are learning to babble and speak or when they are being annoying or demanding in general. I think most people who have embarked on this journey, including myself, are doing it to form a deeper relationship and understanding of their pet as an individual. There are definitely pros and cons to this, but who hasn't wished they could know what their pet wanted at times or that they could tell them what was wrong when they are sick or in pain (this is especially interesting for potential uses in veterinary medicine) etc.? I know I have. But there is a lot to wrap ones head around with the can of worms being opened here.
I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on some of these things and the ethical pieces as well. I find it all so fascinating and look forward to following the ongoing research being done. I've also signed us up to participate in the phase 1 study gathering information on new learners and their progression to understand if there are differences in age, sex, breed, etc etc on how they pick this up. There are also later phase studies happening with all sorts of other things for those further along. I'm currently tracking the buttons Sookie presses and the context it happened in along with when I'm modeling the buttons in an app for this purpose and will be providing a more detailed update I have to fill out every two weeks as we go.
. So we’ll see how that goes, I think I got across that it wasn’t a toy for now haha. She is pressing the buttons every once in awhile and will kind of tilt her head like hmmm what’s that about?? I’ve been modeling “play” with that button and also hitting the outside button before we go out. She has a bell to go outside as well and I’m not going to take that away until she gets comfortable with the button and understands to use that instead.
