You’re lucky I’m drunk enough to edit myself.
First attempt was spelled “Your”. Don’t type with gloves on a windy day.
Whoo hoo! Buttons are here. All batteried up and recorded.
I had one interaction with Bayliss before I had to leave. I followed the enclosed instructions. Got a treat and pushed treat!. And gave him one. Did it twice more.
I said paw and he pawed at the button. Clearly we have work to do.
I pressed Mom bye when I left for dialysis. He knew what I meant.
I’ll see if there are still buttons when I get home. The Chihuahuas were lurking around during all this.
I have to say, Bear the Siamese seemed awfully interested. The words may be all changed to curse words, soon. 
i was wondering if the siamese would get involved.
I’m kinda afraid they will. I may not wanna know what they’re thinking, out loud.
Some things are best left unsaid unbuttoned.
I’m rooting for you and the furry kids!
I happen to think that animals have cognition, and absolutely do communicate. It’s not that far a leap to get to rudimentary phrases, so I think it’s possible that this will work.
(I mean, the treat button for a treat seems like a no brainer. I’m sure that I’ve known lots of dogs who could pull that one off)
ETA: if the button for you is “mom”, then you’re going to have to start referring to yourself that way when talking to the pets.
The literature said start with treat or food for a food motivated dog. Bayliss’ is moderately food motivated.
I’m trying to end on positive notes. And most likely over doing it.
He’s now sulking in the closet. I’m gonna lay off til tomorrow afternoon.
Well, that’s a form of communication right there!
And it seems to have worked.
Yeah. The closet is his cave, his safe place and his bedroom. I know exactly what he means when he goes in there.
The irony is, his first sentence will be, “Avoid Bitcoin! It’s A Scam!”
Followed by a sales-pitch for a Northeastern Bridge he just happens to have majority ownership.
Oh, dear, it sounds like Bayliss doesn’t like going to school, even when it’s home-schooling! Keep at it – I know he’s smart!
He pushed treat about a hour ago. I couldn’t jump up fast enough to give him one and model it.
You have to repeat the button and praise. And give the treat.
So we’ve turned a small corner. I think. I hope.
Who is being trained now? Paw. Paw! Good Girl!
Oh!? Yeah.
Hey, don’t harsh my button fantasy like that!!
stop yourself
Dogs are the third most intelligent life form found on a small blue green planet known as Earth.
They have for some time been conducting a series of elegant psychological experiments on a form of life, regarded as the (distant) fourth most intelligent form of life on the planet, called “humans”.
The dogs’ most recent experimental proposal had substantial difficulties passing ethics review since many considered it to be more a form of subtle mockery than an experiment.
It involves the dogs pushing buttons at random, and then studying (or perhaps more accurately “laughing at”) human responses. Initial ethical concerns have been swept away by the dogs’ delight at the rich experimental data resulting. The experiment has found that the immediate test subjects fall over themselves to assign meaning to this random process. Further they propagate and expand upon the self deception by judicious editing of hours of random button pressing video to convince others that the dogs are pressing buttons meaningfully.
Some dogs have proposed that the initial test subjects do this in order to earn what humans refer to as “YouTube income” but the majority of dogs agree this is unlikely as they well know that the only material reward for which any intelligent life form would be so unethical as to lie to its own kind is “dog treats”.
The idea that a species would blatantly make shit up to earn money is ludicrous.
A dog pressing buttons? Pshaw, cats have dogs beat.
I had a young cat once who delighted in running up and down my piano keyboard. Yes, she could actually play, “Kitten on the Keys.” Not always on key, and often hitting wrong notes, and not ever in the proper time signature, and it depended on the toy I dangled at the other end of the piano keyboard, but she could play piano, scampering up and down.
A dog presses a button for a treat. Whoop-dee-doo. My kitten had 88 buttons on my piano, and she made use of all of them. And she always got treats.
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How many treats are you willing to jump up and give per day?
At 3am we didn’t appreciate treat so much.
The treat button will have to be put up at night til he displays more self control.
We worked on outside this morning. He immediately got it.
My favorite Billi video is the one where her owner was playing music from “Hamilton” and Billi pressed, “Ouch noise.”
The cat has taste.