There have been quite a few times in my life where I've wished I could just have a conversation with my pet. There are so many questions I want to ask them, especially about their lives before I adopted them and what they're doing all day when I'm not home. Amazingly, some people have figured out how to make this happen (kind of) by teaching their animals to use electronic buttons to communicate, so they can learn to press a button with their paw to represent the word they'd say out loud if they could.
Usually, it's dogs we see who are using these buttons, but apparently, cats are capable of being trained to use them too. And, unsurprisingly, the one in this TikTok video is using them to argue with his mom — very typical cat behavior!
On Wednesday, June 16, @puffindoestricks shared this video of an argument she was having with her Scottish Fold cat, who happened to be using the buttons to make sure his attitude really came across.
Basically, Puffin wants a treat (as he keeps saying, via the "treat" button on the pad) but there's only one problem — not only was it midnight at the time, but his mom also pointed out that he's had "lots of treats" that day. That didn't seem to stop Puffin, though; he pressed the button for "now," indicating that she'd better get those treats for him and quickly .
No matter how many times she asked him what he wanted to do, he just kept hitting that treat button... until finally, he relented, asking for catnip instead. Good choice, buddy!
Apparently, Puffin's ability to communicate with the buttons is pretty extensive. His mom wrote In a comment, "He has all of his buttons memorized. He knows the meaning of every button. He has over sixty now but he learned them gradually over time." Whoa!
Do Talking Buttons Really Work for Cats?
It's hard not to watch something like this and be skeptical. I absolutely want to believe that this is something cats (including Puffin) are capable of, but it seems like a stretch. So what's the truth?
According to what cat behaviorist Kristina Wilson told The Wildest, the buttons aren't actually teaching our cats speech the way we think of it; instead, it's training them to push a button to elicit a certain response from their humans.
“It’s the same thing as when people have dogs and they teach them to ring a bell when they want to go outside,” she said. “You’re teaching an animal to associate a concept with an object, which in this case is a button."
But still, that's pretty cool — and if it's fun for you to give it a shot with your cat, why not?
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