We Don’t Need No Stinking Buttons: Why Love is the Best Language for You and Your Dog

Author Erika Slovikoski believes that love is the only language we need to communicate with our dog. photo: Erika Slovikoski

Have you seen those new talking communication gadgets where a dog pushes a button and the device says a word, like “play” or “outside?” I’ve been trying to figure out why these contraptions just don’t sit right with me. After all, I teach so many other paw-targeting behaviors. My dogs know how to push tap lights, service bells, and DJ turntables. So why don’t I want them learning to push these word buttons? 

I think it’s because dogs already communicate so well without words. My dog Orion can make eye contact with me, look directly at the front door knob, look back at me, then hold my gaze and wait. I understand this. I know exactly what he’s saying. Asking him to push a button that says “go outside” when he is already clearly asking that seems ridiculous.

Dogs can be trained to push a button but can we be trained to listen to their love language? photo: Erika Slovikoski

Using a button device would take away from my dog’s dignity by pretending that he can’t already communicate with clarity. All it takes is a look, a small movement, a knowing glance. I don’t need or want any kind of battery-operated word sound to communicate with him.

Humans love words, but we can do a lot of communicating without them. Imagine you are holding a baby who is too young to speak or walk, and they are looking at a Christmas tree, all lit up and sparkly. If they look at it and reach toward it, you walk in the direction they are looking and reaching, and when you get them close enough they touch the soft pine needles and grab the decorations. You’re understanding them perfectly even without words.

I have great respect for people who want to communicate more clearly with dogs and, of course, it seems natural to humans to attempt this with words. I once saw the author Kathy Sdao give a seminar in which she suggested that military radio language could provide an ideal list of cues for trainers to use with learners who do not share language with them. This is because these words are already designed to sound as different as they possibly can for clarity over radio communication. Her theory was that if we used Delta, Echo, and Foxtrot as cues for behaviors when training our dogs, it would provide greater clarity for them, too. 

But we often use training words that already have a meaning for us. If we say “down” we have an idea of the behavior and body position associated with that word. The dog does not know the meaning of this word until we train the behavior and then add it as cue to their already fluent behavior. Imagine the burden we place on them to remember what behavior goes with which sound. Why don’t we place that burden on ourselves by calling down “FOXTROT?” If we say “DOWN” and the dog lays down we can mistakenly start to believe the dog shares our concept about what the word means, and we can easily fall into this belief when our dogs are pushing word sound buttons too. 

Dogs don’t have words, but they have so many ways to express themselves. In fact, they are flowing fountains of communication, using behavior, body language, movement, physical touch, eye contact, pouncing, barking, whining, staring, wiggling, looking away, and many other ways to tell you how they’re feeling. The more carefully you observe your dog, the more you will understand his communication and be able to respond. 

If you ask your dog to target a sound button with his paw and he does, you may believe he shares the same concept you have about the meaning of the sound. But if you put a different sound in its place, what would that mean? If you changed the button to say “drown” instead of “down” what would that conversation be like? 

There’s a funny video making the rounds of the internet in which a human is working out and asks the dog what she thinks. The dog hits a pre-recorded button that says “try harder” and everybody laughs. Any time we’re laughing and having fun, that’s awesome. We have the right to be silly. But we should also understand that it’s just a paw target to the dog. There’s a lot of room to laugh without thinking the dog is actually speaking to us through the buttons. 

Dogs are such excellent communicators with their already very sophisticated skills. If we observe them, love them, and respond to them, the lines of communication are always open. We don’t need any battery-operated buttons to tell us that.