WHO MUST PUSH THE RIGHT BUTTON?
A friend once showed me an Instagram account that featured a speech pathologist using verbal buttons to give her dog a “voice.” Te dog, once
learning what a word meant, would then walk over, hit that particular button, and the owner would respond accordingly. Tere were several ba-
sic buttons like “outside,” “eat,” “park,” and “play,” but also more complex buttons like “where,” “upset,” and “all done.” Te owner and her dog have been featured in an article by People and boast over 600,000 followers on Instagram. As a veterinary student and someone fascinated by communication and learning, this seemed like the perfect “trick” to teach my Beagle, Sully. Te special buttons were quickly ordered from Amazon, and the training began.
I thought it would be best to start with something simple in order for Sully to figure out the new system. He received a singular button for “outside” that was placed by my front door. After over a week of coax- ing and some minor chewing, I was surprised one night when he walked right over to it and hit it with his paw indicating he wanted to go outside. I was thrilled and quickly went to program two of the other buttons that came in the pack. Tese were set to “hungry” and “bedtime,” both words my Beagle knew far too well. I began to train him to the new buttons like I had for the “outside” button, and soon he began to use them to ask for his dinner and to request to go to bed. However, here is where the training got interesting.
Sully began to interpret the buttons in ways I had not considered. One Saturday afternoon, he walked over and hit the “bedtime” button. I looked over in confusion. While Sully had been known to hit that button around 7 pm at the earliest, he had never hit it at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. After a little bit of detective work and reasoning, I soon discovered that his normal spot on the couch was missing a blan- ket. I returned with the blanket fresh from the dryer and placed it in his normal spot. He immediately climbed up and fell asleep. Similarly, while I was eating some apple slices one afternoon, Sully observed me, and then ran and hit his “hungry” button before returning to beg for a slice. Suddenly, I was left wondering who was actually training whom.
I’ll likely add new words to Sully’s arsenal soon, although I will clearly need to choose them carefully. But overall, the experience has renewed my appreciation for how smart all our veterinary creatures are and the amazing ways they seek to communicate and bond with us. I was always told that being a veterinarian is extra challenging just because our patients cannot speak to us; but after completing the various behavior cours- es throughout my veterinary school curric- ulum, I feel like this is only partially true. Our patients often tell us what is wrong. We just may not understand them if we do not pay close enough attention. After complet- ing around ten clinical rotations involving multiple species, however, I cannot help but think that having a button for patients to
tell me what is wrong would be very helpful.
Fall 2020 17
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