I’ve been seeing a dog food ad that includes one of those pads with the buttons that talk, I was curious to hear about them from people who actually have them.
I have those buttons for my dog. He is a Red heeler and German Shepard mix, and is quite clever.
He pretty much learned to press them immediately, however the only ones he seems to use without prompting is the treat jar and the play buttons.
The rest like hungry, thirsty, and potty he has to be coaxed into using first.
Our dogs seemed to understand what they were, but weren’t interested in using them. We mostly had workable signals in place already. I think they just found the buttons unnecessary. And our husky mix comes pretty close to talking anyway.
Once your pet already has you trained they aren’t going to want start over. “Teaching an old human new tricks” is an idiom for a reason.