5 Button Board Setups to Help Your Dog Communicate

Dogs can be very expressive by their very nature. You know when your fur baby is happy, guilty, sad, or in pain just from their body language. But wouldn't it be nice if they could talk, too?

Dogs are trainable, and they respond to commands, so teaching them commands by way of talking buttons is increasingly common. With talking buttons, you can train your pooch to communicate with you, using prerecorded voice clips that carry meaning.

Are button boards a good idea, and if you want to use them, how should you set them up? Let's talk all about button boards and everything you'll need to know!

What Are Button Boards?

A button board is an arrangement of buttons, each of which has a distinct voice clip attached to it. Button boards can be small and simple or large and elaborate, and it all comes down to how many different words and "commands" you want to teach your pup.

Most dog button boards contain around 10-20 buttons with different functions, but some of the high-learner fur babies out there can learn as many as 100! One canine psychologist taught his dog 1,000 different, distinct names and some surprisingly advanced grammar, though not really the way we think of it. Of course, you need to have the physical space for this kind of arrangement, but that's where your setup comes in.

There are a handful of different brands of button boards, all with their own pros and cons. I'll leave you to do your own research into which brands are the best. They're all pretty much the same concept, though: buttons your dog can press that play a voice clip, either prerecorded or recorded by you when you set them up. The buttons are attached to modular boards that stick together in a fixed arrangement; the button board is the whole arrangement of buttons on a backer.

Everything else is a matter of training.

Are Button Boards Effective for Dog Communication?

Yes and no.

A common misconception with button boards is that you're teaching your dog words, concepts, and language. This isn't really true.

The truth of the matter is, you're associating a specific behavior or group of behaviors with a certain sound, triggered by a certain action.

When your dog presses the "Treat!" button, and you give them a treat, you haven't taught them that the word "treat" means treat. You've taught them that the button they press and the noise that plays means treat. The word on the voice clip could be literally anything.

Likewise, your dog isn't reading a label on the button. They might recognize a shape or color in an arrangement, but more likely, they know the third button from the right is the one that conjures a treat.

Usually, dog buttons come in a few categories.

• Subjects, like your name, your dog's name, and other pet names.

• Objects, like toy, ball, or food.

• Places, like bed, walk, or outside.

• Actions, like potty, play, or come.

• Descriptions, like All Done, Good, or Later.

• Social, like Want, Hello, or Love You.

The trick is, again, that the actual word doesn't matter to your dog. It matters to you, though. The key is in the training, which means you need to be very on the ball with training your pooch, otherwise things can go wrong pretty quickly.

Are There Downsides to Using Button Boards?

Button boards can be great, but they have a few downsides.

For one thing, they're generally pretty large and take up a lot of space. You need them to be accessible to your dog all the time, but you can't crowd them together, or your dog will have a hard time pressing the right ones. That means a lot of floor (or wall) space dedicated to these buttons, which you might not have.

They're also generally plastic and electronic items that spend a lot of time within easy chewing distance. If your dog is prone to chewing on things, especially new things, especially when you aren't around, those buttons can easily become $10-20 chew toys. Not to mention, being harder plastic and electronic parts, they can be sharp and turn into very dangerous choking hazards.

And, of course, it's heavily dependent on accurate training. Without the right training, it's just going to be a mess of frustration and miscommunication, and that's a fast avenue to a button listing on Facebook Marketplace.

General Tips for Button Board Placement

To get the most out of dog button boards, you need to follow some general guidelines.

While these aren't hard-and-fast rules, they tend to help a lot with your dog getting use out of the buttons, so it's a good idea to keep them in mind when designing your layout.

• Keep your buttons in a central location. If your dog is hammering a button across the house where you can't hear, it does no good.

• Keep the board accessible. This isn't a sometimes toy; it's meant to be always available.

• Avoid pushing the board up against a wall. Your dog needs to be able to access all the buttons easily, and that might mean approaching it from the other side.

• Avoid clustering buttons too close to one another. Mis-pressing buttons can be a problem and make your dog not want to use the board.

• Avoid symmetrical layouts like straight lines or grids. Your dog will use positioning as much as anything else to pick the right button, so if a box looks the same from different angles, they can hit the wrong button more easily.

• Avoid changing the layout or arrangement of buttons. Again, your dog isn't reading the buttons and probably isn't identifying them by labels; they're memorizing positions. Changing it up, especially if they aren't well-trained in their use, can be a big roadblock.

There's a lot that goes into using button boards properly for dog communication, so it might be worth digging deeper into the psychology if you're interested in how it's all working at a cognitive level.

Five Button Board Setups to Consider

Now let's talk specific setups for your button board. Generally, button boards use hexagonal tiles with anywhere from one to four buttons on each tile, so you can arrange them in clusters and build a layout. That's just a suggestion, though; you're free to mount the buttons in any way you like. The five suggested layouts here are just options to consider.

1: A U-Shaped Board Layout

A simple U shape, or crescent shape, is a great way to build a "command center" for your dog to sit in when they want to communicate. The buttons are all laid out around them, and they can access anything they want. The asymmetrical shape also means that if they approach from another side, they can locate a button by rotating the shape in their mind.

Some dogs love to make eye contact when pressing a button, so they know they're communicating with you. The U-shape, pointed towards where you spend time, can be a good option for this.

2: A Wall-Mounted Board Layout

One option, and really the only good option if you have a very space-limited home, is mounting button boards on the wall. Nothing says they need to be on the floor, right? Wall-mounted buttons do make it harder to make eye contact, and they need to be mounted at the right height for your dog to comfortably press, but it can be very convenient.

Just make sure you're mounting them securely enough that your dog can't pull them down off the wall accidentally.

3: The Anchored Line

An anchored line is a layout you can arrange for your buttons that is basically just a straight line, but with a cluster or knob on one end. The cluster gives the line asymmetry, so your dog doesn't get confused as to which side they're on and where their buttons are.

This can be useful if the best space for your dog buttons is long and narrow, like a galley kitchen layout or a hallway. But, it's less useful if you want more of a command center style of button layout for your pooch.

4: The Asymmetrical Cluster

The asymmetrical cluster is just that: a cluster of buttons without any real pattern. This is what you see a lot from the marketing for various hexagonal button tile companies. You put a tile down with a couple of buttons on it, add another tile with a couple of buttons, and build it out organically as you add more buttons and commands.

This is probably the least space-efficient layout, but it's more of an organic shape and can make more sense to some dogs.

5: Multiple Clusters of Local Buttons

Another option is to make a couple of smaller clusters. These can be location-based, like one for the ground floor and one for the upper floor. Or, they can be task-based, like a cluster for food-related words, a cluster for outside-related words, and a cluster for play-related words.

Whichever layout you choose, it's more about using your space effectively without the buttons getting in the way of living in your home. Everything else is all in the training.

Common Questions about Dog Communication Button Boards

To wrap things up, let's answer some of the questions I didn't have a place for up above.

What do I do if my dog is spamming buttons over and over?

Spamming is the main fear of any button board novice. If you teach your dog that pressing the food button gets them food, why wouldn't they sit and hammer the button when they want a snack? The same goes for something like a "play" button when they're bored, or a "potty" button when they just want to go outside to chase squirrels.

The key here is training your dog delayed gratification. Responding to them with "later" is better than trying to punish spamming, take away the button, or another negative outcome. You may also find it useful to distract them with something else, though you need to be careful not to accidentally teach them another association with the button.

Unfortunately, spamming can be a real problem, and it's something you need to work through.

Are there any bad layouts for button boards?

A few, yes, though it can depend on the dog.

Broadly, you want to avoid anything that is shoved up against an object or wall, which can make the board inaccessible. Your dog might want to approach from the wall side, or might not feel comfortable reaching over some buttons to hit others. To an extent, you'll need to play around and figure this out with your pup to learn their preferences.

Another common problem is using a symmetrical layout like a 4x4 grid of buttons, especially if the buttons are similar-looking. This can be very confusing for your dog, and it can make them not want to press the buttons near the middle of the layout.

Similarly, small buttons that are packed too close together can be a problem. If your pup accidentally hits the wrong button, they'll feel bad about it, and that can make them less likely to use the button board at all.

What if I want to rearrange the layout of the board?

Generally, if you can avoid rearranging the buttons, do so.

If you have to, do it slowly; inch the button from place to place slowly, until it reaches its final destination. Try to only do this with one button at a time, too, or it can be confusing.

What if my dog stops interacting with the button board?

If you've taught the buttons and your dog seems to get bored of using them and stops, it's because the novelty has worn off. Eventually, though, they'll probably pick it back up.

The downside is that this can take weeks or months. It can feel very bad to have a whole board of buttons and a bunch of training and effort that seems to go to waste, but usually they'll pick it back up eventually. You just need a lot of patience!

So, there's my rundown of dog button boards. Any other questions? Feel free to let me know!