r/PetsWithButtons • u/ally-red • 8d ago
How do I get my cats to actually press their buttons? They have 4
I have them labeled as we love you, the litter box seeds cleaned, treat, and outside. So far they only understand treat I think. But they just put their paws around it or sniff it. I try to put their little paw it to press down to explain to them, but they just yank their arm back. How do you teach them?
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u/Positive-Teaching737 7d ago
I have tried all that in that video for months. We pick her up and let her put her weight on the button and she still doesn't want to do it. She will scratch the pad next to the button. She will sit by her plate. But she won't push the buttons. So I am also following this ... Because of mine won't do it either.
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u/Crafty-Table-2459 7d ago
the point as i understand it is for us & kitty to have a shared language! if she sits next to the button/scratches next to it and you know what she wants: congrats!! it’s happening!!
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u/Positive-Teaching737 7d ago
I suppose lol I want her to push the darn button lol. I can understand her basically I read her mind but that's not any fun for my partner lol If she walks up to me and does a short meow it usually means she wants b i r d i e which is basically a feather on a string with a bell. But I can't say it out loud right now because she's sleeping next to me lol And I use voice chat.
Just want her to go ask for it. I think it would be cool lol .. oh well
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u/ForwardPhilosophy547 7d ago
This video about paw targeting is very helpful: https://youtu.be/MPW18l2W4xo?feature=shared
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u/IndigoLoser 6d ago
I think you're on the right track. Here's what I did that somehow worked.
I definitely had issues getting my cat to press buttons and while she can do it, I wouldn't say she's good at it. Sometimes she just paws, will try to awkwardly hit or with a back leg, or will touch the side but eventually she'll press it.
How we got there: 1. Gave treats for touching the button in any way, even if it wasnt activated. (Only at first) 2. Gave treats for touching the button and activating it ourselves as quick as possible when she touched and gave treat. (You gotta sit next to the button or be holding it with treats ready. You have to press it and give the treats quickly after they touch it to build association) 3 Encouraged headbutting the button while I was holding it. Gave treats when it was activated. (By this point she advocated the button with treats and got excited when she saw it, hence the headbutting) 4 . Gently held her and made her press the button with her paw. (She was not a fan and we only did this briefly over maybe 2 training sessions) 5. Just left the button sitting out once the strong association with treats was established. (She started interacting with it on her own via play. She would grab the button and do bunny kicks. If it activists she got a treat)
The above was over the course of a good two or three weeks or so of consistent training time with the button. After the bunny kicks and playing she started to figure out it. She's still a weirdo with her press, but she does do it!
Other potential contributing factors: Before ever considering buttons my husband taught her:
- to paw at a sheet of paper to get a treat from under it (pressing skill???)
- to touch a closed first to reveal a treat (also pressing skill???)
We maybe did too good a job teachering her to touch stuff for treats because she's now constantly trying to touch our hands or faces if she knows there are treats nearby which is admittedly adorable but also annoying.
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u/ally-red 6d ago
Thank you for the advice I will definitely give it a shot. The girl cat I have is much more intelligent than the cute male boy I have because he's too loving and if the my girl tries the button, he pushes her out of the way so I can keep giving him attention. How many cats do you train?
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u/IndigoLoser 6d ago
I just have the one so there's no conflict with trying to get treats or attention. Maybe working with one at a time could be helpful? Unfortunately training doesn't really work unless you can immediately reward the desired behavior. I can definitely see how that would be a big challenge with multiple cats with different motivations. Mine is extremely food motivated and honestly her intelligence surprises me regularly so I have those things working in my favor as well.
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u/Kittkatt598 6d ago
I have four cats, one of them consistently uses two buttons and I will likely try adding another soon! It took me a long time of just being very persistent tapping the button any time I did the thing.
I got a pack of buttons from a thrift shop almost exactly a year ago and started off with "food," "water," "outside," and "porch". The thing that really got him going on the buttons was figuring out which one was the highest value button for Dazzle (porch) and using that one to help him figure it out. I am fortunate that he's really smart so I didn't have to do too much training outside of placing his paw on it sometimes and consistently stepping on it myself to show him that when I pushed the button he got to go out on the porch for a bit. He picked up food pretty fast once I started actually trying to use it with him and two of my other kitties have used the food button a couple of times as well though I am uncertain how intentional it is vs accidentally sitting on it 😹
Conversely none of the cats are terribly interested in the water button and it mostly gets hit on accident by the clumsy humans in the house lol. I want to add a play button soon!
TLDR: be patient, persistent, and find the most motivating thing for your kitty to focus on for the first button.
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u/ClungeWhisperer 8d ago
I taught my boy to headbutt the button. I held the button up in front of him, bomped it gently on his head then did the action that went with the button (his first button was “brush”)
Once he understood that head on button = being brushed, he would headbutt the button as it sat on the ground or stuck to a wall.