Hard to believe it's been just over a year since we adopted our spunky Sirius. In addition to gaining weight, he's matured a good deal. He responds to commands well now, and suppresses instinctual, reactive behavior more. Since raising two kids is the only other milestones-related experience I have, my tendency is to lean into what I know. So overall, I'd say Sirius is exhibiting more middle-schooler than toddler behavior these days. And because he responded so well to the semi-consistent, hackneyed training we've done with him, we know he's wicked smart. Seeing this potential gave me an idea.
There's an account I follow on Instagram by a speech pathologist who, by using paw-sized buttons that each play a word when pressed, along with cues and patience, taught her dog to talk.
The idea fascinated me. Watching Christina Hunger's dog Stella use buttons to communicate with her owners convinced me that Sirius could learn to do the same. I got a starter pack with six buttons, along with Christina's book so I could learn the method. We started in the spring. I ignored my husband's and son's eye-rolling at my new project, and demonstrated the buttons to Sirius along with modeling.
For example, I'd push the PLAY button, and then I'd get a toy and offer to play with him. I placed the WALK button by the front door, and would press it right before attaching the leash, then push it again before we left to walk. OUTSIDE was used when we'd go into the yard and play fetch for a while, to differentiate it from WALK. EAT and WATER were next to his bowls, so I'd use them when I gave him kibble or water. LOVE YOU was a little more of an abstract concept, so I'd push that and then give him lots of love and scritches.
Initially, Sirius seemed to surmise we were a bit of a goofy family and these buttons just confirmed it for him. But we took the buttons with us when we went to Massachusetts in July. We took them when we went to Delaware in August. By the time we brought them home after all our travels, Sirius would tilt his head when we pressed them, but otherwise not really show interest.
In October, I finally put all the buttons next to each other in the living room. I've kept them in the same order, and we continue to use them to 'talk' to Sirius each day. Again, we were met with lots of head tilting, but no attempts to push them himself.
Then one day, it clicked.
My husband and I were sitting and reading the newspaper. Sirius looked at each of us, perhaps tired of being ignored, and walked over to the buttons. He laid down next to them and pawed the OUTSIDE button. Then he did it again, and looked at us.
It was as if we'd just seen our baby take its first steps. We jumped up, cheered for him, pressed the OUTSIDE button ourselves, then took him out into the yard to play.
Young parents have a joke that you spend the first two years of a kid's life teaching him to talk and then the rest of his life trying to get him to shut up. So it was with Sirius.
Once he's made the connection between pushing a button and getting us to pay attention to him, he was pawing them like piano keys. But with some more modeling and cues, we were able to get him to understand each of their placements and meanings. When we sat down to dinner one evening, he walked over and pressed the EAT button and then laid down by the couch.
"Did he just comment on the fact that we're eating?" I said incredulously to my husband.
"Um, it seems like it."
"Ben, you fed him after you walked him, right?" I asked.
"I did, and I watched him eat it," Ben said.
The three of us just stared at each other.
These days, it's not unusual for Sirius to stretch at around 10:30am, then walk over and press the PLAY button, followed by OUTSIDE. This is a cue for my husband to go kick around an almost airless basketball with him in the yard. Then they'll go on a little hunting excursion to root out chipmunks from leaf piles or chase squirrels up trees.
Mid-afternoon, Sirius will press his WALK button. When I tell him he has to wait for Ben to get home from work, he hops up onto his chair by the bay window and watches the street until he sees Ben's car arrive. Then he runs downstairs to sit by the front door.
By far, my favorite request is when he looks at me, then presses LOVE YOU followed by OUTSIDE. This is his way of asking me to sit on the couch in our screened porch, with him in my lap, and give him some pets and scratches.
Even though the buttons were my idea, and everyone in my house thought I was wasting my time, I still shake my head in wonder that Sirius has learned how to speak our language, and is using his voice to tell us his desires.
More than feeling vindicated though, what this experience has taught me is the power of potential, and of believing in something or someone despite the naysayers. Perseverance brings about change. Hope, even in the early days of no progress, is a strong motivator. And success is empowering.
If we can teach our pets to talk, is there anything we can't accomplish?
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