Wednesday, 11 August 2021

Things My Dogs Says part 2

 



It's already been over two months since I published the original Things My Dog Says post and as we plan to get Baker one more set of buttons this month, I thought I'd put together another quick compilation of some things he has been saying lately. 
I'd really recommend having a super quick read of the previous post which gives more of a background to Baker's intelligence and our journey with the buttons because we didn't plan to get anymore and after this, we won't be, despite knowing he is capable of expanding his vocabulary out loud even more. 

I've been terrible at remembering to jot down interesting or funny things Baker has come out with in the past couple of months but here is a small handful below.


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After pressing bed, I said 'No it's too early.' He replied by pressing yes and so I told him 'You can't just say yes when I say no to get what you want!' He pressed yes again haha! I said 'Don't argue with me.' And to have the last word Baker said 'Yes, bed!'. 


One of the reasons we have decided to get another set of buttons is to add an 'Outside' button. We didn't originally and only chose to have 'Toilet' because it made sense for us and his routine/habits at the time. 
However, lately, he has been saying 'Toilet Play' when he wants to play outside.

Our friend Laura popped around to sit in the garden. I decided to take out his buttons so that he could still communicate with me as he kept running into the house to press buttons. I also brought his dinner outside as sometimes he prefers to only eat when I'm there with him.
He then said 'Toilet, Settle, Baker, Dinner' which I took to mean 'No more outside. Baker wants dinner'.


Sitting looking at the window, he then got up and pressed 'Water'. I checked his bowl which was full so I think he pressed water in relation to the rain outside. 


When watching Americas Got Talent I get a little bit emotional and at a particularly heartwrenching moment, I must have been sobbing. Baker usually cries why I cry and tries to lick my tears, but on this occasion, he also went to his buttons and pressed 'Settle'.

Baker was sat crying and I asked what he needed. He pressed 'toilet' so I got up to take him out but he didn't move and then he pressed 'dinner'. So I said, 'Okay you want dinner?' and brought him his dinner. Again he didn't move and stared at me before pressing 'Oops'. I asked him 'Why oops?' and he replied by pressing 'Toilet' again. I took him out, he went, then rushed in to eat his dinner.
 So apparently it was 'Oops, I do I the toilet before dinner.'


We were at my parent's house and Dad choked while drinking his water. Baker rushed over to his buttons we'd brought with him and he slammed his foot on 'Help!' while looking around at us all.

It seems one of  Baker's favourite words has become 'Settle'. If I'm doing my workout he likes to tell me to 'Settle' and recently during one particular hardcore workout I was struggling to breathe and he panicked and told me 'Settle. Water!'


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As you can see from this post and the previous one, his talking has continued to develop and I always find it fascinating how he works around and uses the small amount of words he has to get his point across. I would love to build up more and more buttons for him with increasing numbers of words that we know he already knows, but the sheer cost, as well as the physical space needed, it just isn't feasible. We are also aware of the Fluent Pet smaller sets of buttons with hextiles, but the same applies to those - plus shipping from the US is insane! 

To sum up, the words he currently uses are: Balloon, Play, Yes, Bed, Toilet, Settle, Dinner, Sweetie, Oops, Baker, Water and Help. 
This month we will get one more set of four buttons and as of now plan to add a 'No' option (seeing as he has a 'Yes'), like I mentioned above we will also have an 'Outside' button and we aren't fully decided on the last two. I may do another of these posts in 6 months or so to update!

Until next time...


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