TRAIN YOUR DOG TO TALK WITH BUTTONS // how to teach your dog to talk using canine AAC

today we're talking all about how i am training my puppy to talk to me using buttons outside hi it's charlotte with dogs welcome back to my channel or welcome if you're new here don't forget to subscribe for dog content and dog social media tips what are you doing ma'am the way i've trained ginsburg to use the buttons is a lot different than the way i've trained starsky so this video is going to share this different training method for using the talking buttons step number one to get started with the talking buttons with ginsberg was to talk to her all the time if you've seen my videos that is no surprise to you are you gonna do that again i talk to my dogs all the time anyway because i live alone and frankly it gets lonely i want someone to talk to so i talk to my dogs but i also talk to them all the time because it gets them used to my voice and it gets them used to listening to me with communicative intent communicative intent just means i am talking to them with purpose of course i'm also using other forms of communication to communicate my messages to my dogs so i'm using a lot of body language context context clues and on occasion bribing with treats but regardless they are getting used to me communicating with them they also really start to pick up on words because they learn that i say a certain word when a certain thing happens starsky has learned the word bone treat cookie vet hike ride these are all words that he already knows and ginsburg is learning they learn those words just by me talking to them a lot and they start reacting to the words as well they use the context as well as the word to figure out what it means step number two is i started with an outside button you want to start with a clear incomprehensible idea for your dog and outside is very clear we're in or we're out it's also something they're motivated to press because they want to go outside especially when they have to go to the bathroom so it is something that's motivating but not too motivating language and canine behavior experts all say if you have a food motivated dog do not start with a food related button it will just become a trick that they can use i then started modeling how to use the buttons so i used my own foot or sometimes my hand to tap the button as well as repeat the word itself bedtime okay so i would say outside hit the outside button we would go outside and then over time the dogs pick up that that's what that means not all dogs do pick up on modeling and this was ginsburg ginsburg is a very smart dog but for whatever reason modeling is not her best learning method modeling is definitely a really good place to start because it is the most natural way to learn language but it might not work for all dogs because modeling didn't work for ginsburg i did have to get a little creative so i started by encouraging her to use her paws i started teaching her a nose touch and then i moved on to a paw target and we did a lot of work differentiating the two we also do dog sports one of which is barn hunt the objective of that is to find a rat in a pvc tube and tell the handler at practice when she would use her paws to tell me where the rat was i would get like really excited so she would get used to using her paws and that being a good thing that would elicit praise from me i also did have a treat button but only for training sessions so we would do a few sessions where she figured out if i press this button mom gives me a treat however this was not on the board because starsky cannot have them and i did that to introduce her to the concept of pushing buttons with her paws even if it didn't generalize at least she had the concept in the back of her mind the biggest difference for ginsberg from reacting to the buttons to actually pressing them on her own was when i straight up just taught her how to press a button with her paw so i already had the paw target trick so i taught her how to press the button put my hand over the button i'd tell her target she targeted my hand and pressed the button then i would put my hand under and she wasn't necessarily going for the button but she would press it in targeting my hand again getting used to that idea and i did each of these steps for maybe one or two days then i had my hand just next to the button and that's when it clicked for her so she would target my hand hit the button i would react oh yeah we can go outside and we would go outside that enthusiastic response really encouraged her to use the buttons and then she did it again later on that night now she uses them very consistently to go outside i also encourage use of the buttons by making it hard for her and i don't mean that i'm denying her anything if she has to go outside and she can't figure out how to use the button of course i'm gonna take her outside right but what i'll do is if she walks over to the door and stands next to it i kind of ignore her for a little bit give her a chance to work through it in her mind how can i communicate that i need to go outside more effectively to mom she'll work through it maybe 10 15 seconds and then she'll press the outside button usually so that just encourages use of the buttons as the most effective form of communication now again if she couldn't figure it out of course i would take her out not abusing or neglecting my dog but i am encouraging her to problem solve which is a good skill for a dog to have she also has some other buttons right now our biggest focus is on water bedtime and water she will react appropriately to bedtime and water she knows what they mean she just hasn't generalized yet that she can also press those buttons to get what she wants we're getting there we are focusing primarily on water so i'm doing the paw targeting process with the water button again whenever she or starsky is thirsty just to emphasize to her look you can press this button too and this button makes me get water of course i am very hopeful that she will not need me to teach her to target every single button but we'll learn that the buttons are for communication after she's learned how to use a few of them right now we are about one and a half buttons in we will see what happens make sure you subscribe to get updates on ginsberg's progress and learn more about canine aac thanks so much for watching bye guys you got my earring can you chill for 30 seconds

Channel: Charlotte Lehman

Views: 15,235

Keywords: dog talk with buttons, aac, charlotte with dogs, charlottewithdogs, dog button communication, dog button training, dog buttons, dog buttons talk, dog talking with buttons, dog talks with buttons, dog training, dog training buttons, golden retriever, talking dog, talking dog buttons, talking dog buttons training, talking dog how to, talking dog video, teach your dog to talk, teach your dog to talk with buttons, train your dog, train your dog to talk, dog training fundamentals

Id: 5t8LxzsiilQ

Length: 6min 4sec (364 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 09 2021