FluentPet Speak Up Get Started Kit with Clearer Upward-Facing Sound - 6 Recordable Buttons w/Pre-Installed Batteries & 3 HexTile Button Mats | Training Dog & Cat Communication Buttons

Easy to use, great price for a starter pack. She picked it up pretty quickly. Went to the website to buy the next set on buttons direct from them. With a discount code. Can’t wait to add to her vocabulary.

I purchased this set 2 years ago and it changed everything for the better. I got this for my senior, 15 year old beagle about 5 months before she passed away (YES old dogs CAN learn new “tricks” - though this isn’t so much a trick as it is a way to communicate their needs). I continued with my next dog, and I have such an amazing relationship with him because he can advocate for himself, ask me for specific things that body language and barks alone wouldn’t be able to specify. I now buy larger sets directly from the FluentPet website, but I love that they still sell these affordable starter sets on Amazon - and it looks like they offer even more options on Amazon than they did back when I ordered this set. I was searching today to see what they currently offered on Amazon, and to my surprise, I saw some comments people have left who are giving up quickly and saying they’re going to return the set, and just some weird negative reviews. Since I never posted a review back when I purchased these, I figured it’s a good opportunity to tell you, as someone who is now fairly experienced in teaching my dog(s) how to use these buttons - it sometimes takes time! Don’t give up on your pet. Just because they aren’t pressing - it doesn’t mean they are too dumb, or that they don’t understand - they just haven’t decided yet whether interacting with the buttons is worth their time and attention. Honestly, it takes, what, 2 extra seconds out of your day to keep modeling the word - they get it; they understand what you’re doing - and eventually, they WILL press the button. And at that moment, when they finally press their first button, you will see the potential for what you and your pet can do with this new world of communication they now have at their fingertips (err… pawtips)! I can’t say enough good things about FluentPet, I’m a huge supporter of this brand and the talking-pet movement, mainly because of the higher quality of life it offers our furry family members. Anyway, these buttons are good quality, the brand is reliable, customer service is super helpful, basically, I’m a super fan here. If you can do one good thing for your pet today, BUY THESE BUTTONS. :) I included a photo of the very first button for “outside” that I gave my 15 year old beagle two years ago. I am never going back - my current pet and all of my future pets will have buttons. Just remember, be patient!

Unfortunately 2 of the 8 buttons I've opened to use are already dead and I've only had them about a week. No contact with water or aggressive pushing as my dogs aren't even using them consistently yet.

Amazon forced me to return. Box looked great was looking to using this item. But since they failed to give me rest of order i have to return it to get a refund on my order. Will order direct next time.

I've wanted to try this for a long time, but waited due to the ages and health situations of my prior pets, who have since passed. I now have two 8 mo kittens, who are very interactive and constantly trying to "talk" to me, so I finally sprung for it, figuring now is the ideal time for them to learn. We're still in the very early stages of using the buttons, so my rating is not based on the efficacy of the language-learning system, but the quality of the physical product.Pros:* Buttons are easy for small paws to press.* Method is straightforward.* Physical product is quick to set up, nice looking, and well-packaged.* Different colored mats for different parts of speech is an interesting idea and seems like an improvement to their original product (which I only saw in videos, but appeared to have no color coding and to rely only on spatial memory).Cons (mostly issues due to the $129 price tag):* Sound quality is a little fuzzy (no better than off-brand buttons, which I briefly tried with a prior pet) and one of my buttons is weirdly louder and another fainter compared to the others.* When removing cut-outs to place buttons into mats, neoprene backing feels very thin. It seems like it could accidentally be punched through if one is too enthusiastic.* Sticker labels seem dog-centric, along with some oddly specific ones for a "basic vocab set" in which one can record only 12 word options. I personally might have preferred a sheet of blank labels (*ideally* ones with a wet-erase surface and a thin-tipped non-toxic wet-erase pen, so that they could be edited).* Not much can be said with 12 words, especially in a multi-pet and/or multi-human household, which needs a button at least for each pet if not multiple people. For $129 it seems like they could at least include 16 buttons. Having just a few more word options could add a lot of value in practice.Overall, given the price of this package, one might expect a little more attention to detail in terms of the product quality/usability and consideration of a larger customer base.This last thought is purely speculative and does not effect my rating, but I'm wondering if it might make more sense to have differently colored and/or patterned button tops to provide clearer visual cues to link to specific word meanings. In early online videos of Bunny (from before the FluentPet system was released) generic buttons were used that were an array of bright colors, and my understanding is that those are what she first learned with. FluentPet seems to have updated their mats to allow different colors for different parts of speech, but the buttons themselves are all still white. I realize that cats and dogs see colors differently than humans do, but they do have some shade differentiation and can distinguish between high contrast visual patterns. Is it necessary to still rely almost entirely on spatial memory, or is this making potentially limiting assumptions about how animals learn language? There are little stick-figure drawings on the sticker labels, but I suspect those are more helpful to the humans.Conclusion:I still feel optimistic about this product and look forward to seeing how (if) my cats progress with it. At the same time, I see only 2 clear advantages to purchasing this system as opposed to constructing one's own with off-brand buttons and floor mats. (1) The smaller buttons are easier for use by little paws. (2) There is no leg work, in that all the pieces are there.... Constructing one's own system would require finding the right mats and buttons, figuring out how to attach the buttons, etc., and I'm not sure how the cost would compare. I haven't seen any small paw/cat-sized generic buttons, so I would probably repurchase this, mainly for that reason.... On the other hand, I think that if I had a big dog who could handle the bigger off-brand buttons, I might have preferred the DYI route, since the button sound quality is not any better, and it would be easier to experiment with button spacing (for a larger animal) or with color-word association in the DIY case.