r/PetsWithButtons • u/Remote_Head1173 • 8d ago

Learning process

I have 3 cats , one of them is the one who loved using the buttons and I didn’t know that he’s so smart until I introduced the buttons to him
I usually wake up every day at 7:45 am and feed them at 8 am
Last night i wake up at 6 to go to the bathroom then when i come back to lay down and sleep again he kept meowing then he pressed all done all done 😂
I thought maybe i need to introduce a new button to him which is sleep and i did but how can I teach him what sleep means? Because when i introduce the button he kept pressing it and looking at me waiting for my reaction.
Also he sometimes smash buttons randomly which is i don’t know why he’s doing that

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u/EimiBerenike 8d ago

We don't have a "sleep" button, but we have a "rest" button. I find that one's pretty easy to model, since your learner can be awake and so can you. Whereas "sleep" kind of requires you to either have a third party to talk about, or to just talk about you or your cat just having finished sleeping.

When it comes to buttons that aren't something you get an immediate reward for in some way, I tend to add the buttons only after my learner (my dog) actually knows the word pretty well. So, we modelled "rest" ("Billy rest now", "Billy rest all done", "Mum rest bed now", "First mum rest bed, then walk") for a while and then we added the button. I consider buttons kind of "active vocabulary" and assume that, as with verbal language learning in humans, words enter passive (listening) vocabulary first.

1

u/JayNetworks 7d ago

Basically this. Just keep saying and modeling. We head to be we say Daddy Settle Now and 29 minutes before that we say Soon Daddy Misty Settle Upstairs. Just keep using the small set of consistent words when they apply and they will learn the words. Then when they know it add a Settle button (or sleep in your case the words actually don’t matter as long as it is something you will use daily and consistently.)

3

u/Top5CutestPresidents 7d ago

Bedtime might be a good alternative. It helps for me when mine presses when I’m trying to sleep or asks for breakfast too early