When will you tell the actual story of the Tailless One?
I’m teaching him buttons so he can tell me. Then you’ll hear all the details.
I’m convinced he knows things.
Don’t we all…
“Fish” “Bedtime”
Yeah. You should have seem what I just deleted.
I’ll say again that I think the talking buttons are a fantastic idea and it’s very kind of you to spend all that time working with Bayliss to teach him how to use them. Damned remarkable, the whole thing is!
I don’t know if these are the ones you have, but I was curious and Googled it, and this is what it came up with. They claim that cats can also learn to use them but this is clearly a lie! Even if cats were smart enough – which they’re not by a country mile – they prefer spending their time plotting how to kill you.
Regards,
A Dog
Exactly the ones I have.
The thing is, @A-Dog ( new member I guess🤔) they are obviously self limiting.
Bayliss is not ever gonna write even a thin dime novel.
I don’t think he will get much past what his interests in his life are. At the moment he thinks I’m just the best dang thing on earth. Whether it’s because I control the treat distribution or give him loads of attention is a judgement call.
As it happens I think he’s pretty wonderful too.
It’s a game. To keep his mind active and engaged. Every dog needs a job. And his is to be my companion. I owe it to him to give him an exercise he seems happy to do.
And it’s fun.
You’re a saint, Beckers! 
I must say, though, that the use of that large hairy dog in their advertising is not persuasive, as that dog is clearly no Bayliss, intellectually speaking, at least judging from hairy dogs like that that I’ve known. I’ve modified the image to convey what I think is the appropriate intellectual dynamic: 
This just makes me smile so much. I’m fully convinced that dogs understand language (albeit to a limited extent) and are very communicative with their people. They are experts at reading body language, for example.
So I’m not surprised that this experiment is working, but it’s still really cool nonetheless.
I knew I liked him. Us leftys are the world’s largest unorganized minority group, so we gotta stick together.
(See if he can swing a bat. He’ll have a natural advantage running to first, since lefty’s start out closer to the bag when batting)
Ha! Southpaw?
Well, to be truthful "little dogs"was one of my hand signals. I hold my hand, fingers down and wiggle my fingers. He knows that means “little dogs”
You know little dog legs running. Yeah I made it up. He learned it quickly. Maybe a week.
I transferred it to the buttons. He occasionally pushes it when they’re not in my room.
We’re learning/teaching the little dogs to come when he calls them. It’s an extension of the speech I hope he gets.
I’m bumping this thread just to say that I recently watched a fascinating episode of NOVA on PBS, titled “Can Dogs Talk?” It focused on a couple of different things, the general intelligence of dogs, measured by criteria like knowing the meanings of many different words and the names of many different toys that they can fetch on request, and secondly, participating in human speech with the use of those speech buttons you got for Bayliss.
The general consensus seemed to be that, just as with humans, there’s a bell curve distribution of intelligence with dogs, but the dogs on the upper end of the distribution can exhibit really remarkable intelligence.
The experiments with the speech buttons were supervised by qualified academic researchers studying canine intelligence – at least somewhat precluding owner bias – and with some of the brightest dogs, their use of the speech buttons exhibited completely novel uses that were clearly not rote responses. That is, it’s cute if a dog learns that if he presses “treat”, he gets a treat, but that doesn’t necessarily reflect actual understanding.
The show had numerous examples of where actual understanding appeared to manifest. One that comes to mind was when a dog was fed one of his favourite foods several times in a plastic storage container. Then one day the container was put out again, but with a tight plastic lid that the dog couldn’t open. Meanwhile the dog’s owner stood in the room facing the wall away from the dog.
The dog went over to her and pawed at her but she ignored him. Then the dog went over to the speech buttons and pressed “Help”, and then pressed “Help” and “Look”, looking over at the person as he pressed “Help” and “Look” again and again, until she turned around, gave the good boy a treat, and opened the dish!
Following an exhaustive analysis, this is the pattern of dogs’ typical use of speech buttons. As expected, the majority are requests for things, but they’ve also used them to share thoughts and feelings, asking questions, informing, narrating, and many other things that we normally think only humans do (click for larger image).
That last may well work, Dogs can push the correct button to get food.
I bet you can already tell when Bayliss lets you know he loves you.
So, I think you might have some fun with this- and why not?
Yes it’s fun.
And he does press “love you” plenty. Usually to get me to look up at this point.
I was recently hospitalized and my daughter reported he pushed “love you” “bye” repeatedly. And she would tell him “Yes, gone bye. Home soon”
When I came home he pushed “Bye” “where” “hmm?”. I told him I’m fine, bye, all done.
He seemed to get it.
Benny and Mac have mastered the basics of speech-button communication, while Ollie has taken things to the next level with her impressively advanced “human-training” skills.
Since yesterday I’ve been teaching Bayliss the word “egg”.
I recorded the button. Swiped a plastic egg from one of the grand kids.
I was hoping for him to fascinate kids by finding eggs in an Easter egg hunt.
It was gonna be great.
He got “egg" pretty quickly. I’d put it on the chair. Push “egg” and say find egg, Bayliss. He’d go get it and drop it on my lap. After a few repeats I could just push egg and he’d go get it. I hid it increasingly more difficult places. He’d watch, I would press egg and he’d bring it to me.
Of course he was outdoor when my Son hid the eggs this morning for the grandkids. It’s a bunch of eggs. Plastic and dyed.(6 kids).
Well, the kids were sequestered and finally let out to hunt.
Ahem…
Bayliss was outside eating his 2nd or 3rd egg. Enjoying is Easter treat “Egg”.
That Dog!!
You can test his memory. Wait a week and then try again.
Hey, that might be handy for finding that one egg no one found!
Brilliant! 
I’m alarming myself.
Ok, I can use this trick to get him to pick up trash and put in in my bin. Or my socks to the hamper. My book to my lap
Yes, yes, I’m a genius. This training method will sell lots of books. I may have a call from Animal planet for my own TV show, soon.
I’ll be rolling in the bucks, traveling, meeting the hoi poloi. Dripping in jewels.
Oh wait. I feel bad now. What do I want a slave or dog?
I’m against that. Still, Bayliss is a happy smiling dog playing fetch. What’s the difference?
Ohhhhh…. it’s flipping around in my head,
I need to shut up. I think my BG is up or something
He Twerks (has no tail to wag, so kinda shakes it up back there)