Monty Speaks

Teaching Monty the Poodle to use recordable buttons to “speak”

[stcrlghts]

i think what’s on a person’s nightstand is very telling so reblog this and put in the tags the things you have on your nightstand

[monty-poodle]

Monty continues to press the snuggles button occasionally. Once or twice I wasn’t sure if it was deliberate or if he just stepped on it. When he does press it on purpose he enjoys pressing it two or three times in quick succession. I think he enjoys the fact that he can cause it to make noise.

He came up to the couch last night, pawed the button away from the end table, and pressed it. I immediately rewarded him with praise and the requested snuggles. About 20 minutes later he came back and triple pushed the button, but wouldn’t come closer to me for snuggles. When I asked him what he wanted, he gave me a toy. I think he is interpreting the “snuggles” button as “attention”. I asked him if he wanted to play and pressed the “play” button to which he responded with wild enthusiasm. We’ll see if we can’t get him to understand the difference.

Still no interaction with the “outside” button, but I’m not surprised.

[everythingfox]

The swarm has arrived

(via)

[rosslynpaladin]

[monty-poodle]

After considering what Monty values and what I felt he could most easily understand as far as the connection between the button and the action, I added a “Snuggles” button. He watched me record it and hit the button as soon as I put it down, which surprised me. He went back and hit it several more times over the course of the evening, which had me choked up and teary eyed. 🥺 He is a very affectionate dog and loves to sit as close to me as he can get, but seeing him ask for snuggles repeatedly did have me a little emotional.

He used the “Play” button a few times, though mostly at my urging. Monty LOVES to play, so I’m interested to see how long it takes him to use that one independently. I press the “Outside” button every time we’re getting ready for his walks. He hasn’t pressed it yet and I’m not sure how likely he is to take to it early on. Our walks are on a fairly regular schedule.

[monty-poodle]

Monty’s talking buttons arrived today! Now I just need to get him to use them. It took about 20 minutes of “target training” to get him to push the button. Then I actually programmed the button to say “Hit it” so that the command was reinforced and to try and help make the connection between what I was saying and what he was doing. It was then that I knew we could never have a button that says “Treat”. Once he realized that I gave him a treat when the button said “Hit it”, he started spamming the button without being given the command.

Now I have a button near the door which says “Outside” and one near the couch that says “Play”. Following advice I’d seen on Bunny’s videos, I am modeling with the buttons. Before we went out for his walk, I pressed the “Outside” button. I convinced Monty to hit the “Play” button before playing with him. We’ll see how long it takes for him to make the association and begin pressing the buttons independently.

[monty-poodle]

I was inspired by videos of Bunny the sheepadoodle using a soundboard to communicate with her human. Now I’m going to try to teach my dog Monty to use buttons as well. He’s a clever boy and he usually learns fairly quickly. Currently he tries to communicate with head motions or by walking between me and the thing he wants. Sometimes I can’t quite tell what it is that he wants, so this could be great for both of us.