Have you seen Bunny the sheepdog poodle cross using buttons that speak words?

In 2019, Bunny’s human Alexis Devine partnered with the University of California to use “talking buttons” to study Bunny’s capacity for understanding language. I came across Bunny in 2020 and thought, “well, with this going mainstream people are going to understand their pets so much better!”

It’s been years now, and while there are a few more creators online showing how their beloved animal friends use buttons to communicate with them, the talking buttons really haven’t taken off the way I thought they would, and I have a theory about why:

I think people don’t always understand how animals experience the world, how they think, and put together expressions. A lot of people assume animals think in words the way that many humans do, and I think that’s the biggest barrier for successful button communication!

Are buttons even necessary?

It depends. In my experience, the people who book sessions with me are already very tuned into their animals wants, needs, preferences, and even humour. This too could be a factor with successful button use – it takes a LOT of work to build up the vocabulary, and a lot of patience. Most tuned-in pet owners don’t need a button to know when their cat wants their litter box scooped or when their dog wants outside.

The fascination with buttons comes in when your pet already understands the buttons are for communication, and they have at least 10 to choose from – THEN they can start putting surprising sentences together.

Buttons aren’t necessary, but they sure can be fun!

If you have the time and inclination to devote to introducing talking buttons, plan to give it at least 6 months. The first buttons you use will be boring but easy, and your pet will IMMEDIATELY abuse them! Don’t get discouraged!

If I gave my cat Rupert an “outside” button, he’d be leaning on that thing every 30 minutes once he figured out what it did – or what it made ME do. This is why you have to introduce the “later” button pretty early on, and have patience with the process.

Rubert “Outside”

Me “Outside, Later”

Rupert “Outside Outside Outside Outside”

There’s a reason your typical animal guardian gives up in this phase! They’ll lean hard on the button usage when they only have a few, but if you’re able to stick with it until you get to the describing your environment stage, I strongly encourage you to do so!

The next stage of button introduction is associating environment descriptors. I know people with buttons for their daily routines, as well as buttons for neighbours, strangers, worries, and pain. Cats LOVE to keep their humans on a schedule, so if you want help remembering to take your laundry out of the washer and into the drier, give your cat a button for “laundry” and push it every time you go to the machines. They’ll catch on quickly and press the button if they’re expecting you to attend to the laundry and you’re delaying doing it.

If you have trouble remembering to take medications – set alarms please – but also give your cat a button and you push it every day when you take your medicine on time. You can silence an alarm and forget it rang, but you sure can’t silence a persistent cat who is expecting you to do something!

I think this is a very under-utilized potential of buttons! We see a lot of videos online of animals being funny with how they put thoughts together using the limited button selection, but at the end of the day animals are among the beings who know us best on earth! They spend the majority of their lives paying attention to us, and they want to participate in our lives.

That’s why I think the buttons have such great untapped potential for the people who have the time to build the complexity. Yes, animals can use them to communicate wants and needs – and I actually think more large livestock should be trained on buttons if they’re going to live and work with humans during a long life. It makes a big difference for a horse to be able to ask staff at their stable to take off or put on their blanket, to alert something is wrong with the food or water, or to indicate they’re in pain before they’re so terribly ill their lives are in danger.

Do you think your household would benefit from talking buttons?

Again, it all depends! Do you want your pet to help you in some way? Have you ever wondered what they want, or what they are thinking? Do you want them to be able to specify which treat, toy or food?

Buttons can be so helpful for cats sensitive to dirty litter boxes – so many cats will start to pee outside of the litterbox if it’s not cleaned to their satisfaction, so in that case it’s easy to get a single button and hit it every time you clean the litter box – the cat will catch on quickly!

One thing I’m not especially a fan of is humans using rude language with the buttons. I’ve seen some button videos where the dog hits a button that says “feed me bitch!” or other rude things. I feel like everyone should be in on the joke, and the rude buttons have always felt like a prank on the pet to me, like naming a big unneutered male dog “Princess”. They don’t know why their humans laugh, they just know the buttons get a reaction and what the response would usually be. My preference is keep the buttons honest!

Do you need to use buttons with your pet?

Nope! Our pets have mastered the art of making it obvious to us what they want and need. When hurt, most pets will request help from their humans if their person hadn’t already noticed they need it. When we share our homes with pets we notice if something’s off pretty quickly (unlike with horses in the field or the barn where things can go sideways for hours before a human notices. I think horses need buttons that send text messages to their human’s phones.)

As I mentioned, if I gave Rupert an “outside” button, he’s abuse that thing day and night until we had completed the process of building the complexity of his button language he had more options. Rupert has developed asthma in his senior years, and I was thinking of getting him a button for “medicine” just in case he needed to alert us if he needed his rescue puffer and we were absorbed in something else – but Rupert is such a great communicator he solved this potential problem himself. If he wants his puffer he comes up to one of us and then hack / coughs dramatically, then goes to his spot on the cat tree or couch where we routinely give him his medicine. He doesn’t go through this performance often, so I’m satisfied that he’s only asking for extra medicine when he needs it and not just for the extra treat he gets after he cooperates, allowing us to administer his puffer.

Even as an animal communicator I am not always paying attention, and I’ve considered buttons – but my pets are so obvious about their needs and expectant that I will attend to them as soon as I understand what’s up, they’re really obvious and creative with their physical communication! I have zero worries about missing something with them.

If you think your pet needs a button to communicate comfort needs – absolutely get one! It’s simple and easy to introduce buttons even for a single purpose. I have a friend with an elderly dog who uses metacam pain relief medicine to manage his arthritis, and rather than wait until her dog is so sore he struggles to get up, she brought in a talking button just for his pain and medication.

She introduced an “ouch!” button and a “medicine” button. When she noticed her dog was stiff and sore, she hit the “ouch” button. She’d give him his medicine and push the “medicine” button before and after administering it. Most animals will quickly notice that medication alleviates the discomfort of pain or nausea, as these meds work fairly quickly, so they can associate the affects with the medicine and learn to ask for the medicine when needed. This is a great use for buttons!

Now my friend’s dog hits the “ouch” button if he’s in pain – and surprisingly he hits it when he notices his human is in pain! He hit the “ouch” button when his human stubbed her toe painfully. It was so funny and endearing! It’s that kind of heartwarming moment that makes me wish buttons were more standard in pet’s lives.

If you use buttons with your pet, or you’re thinking about it, I’d love to hear about it, and if you’d like to book a session with your pet to explain the buttons to them and trouble shoot any sticking points you may have, I would love to help!

Hi friends!

I just opened two spots in January and one in February 2027 ❤️

We can do animal communication, spirit communication, or a new year report card!

Or hey, you can combine services! Make the most of your hour!

Thank you to everyone who has waited years to rebook with me, I am so enjoying reconnecting with you all!

You can book here!

Maisel is one incredible scent detection dog!

I spoke with her human today about Maisel’s adventures in scent class as a titled Champion in scent detection competition! That means she had to win 3 advanced titles and 2 excellent titles!

Maisel is full of opinions, she’s a winner and she knows it! Let’s face it, Maisel is winning at life too!

Click below to listen to part of my conversation with the remarkable, opinionated, eminently talented Miss Maisel!

You can book an animal communication session with your pet here!

I am overjoyed to welcome back so many clients who have waited patiently for YEARS as I was on my hiatus from doing sessions, and I am so grateful to see so many familiar human and animal friends booking – and I am delighted and surprised to see some of these bookings are completely new clients!

To those of you who referred a friend, THANK YOU!

As each spot books up I’ll open the next spot available, right now my next spot is in October.

Enjoy the summer everyone! ~ Kate

Well, Hello there!

It’s been a while (years) since we’ve last talked!  And I’m glad to be back. 

I’ve spent the past 6 years in Victoria, BC, where my Sweetie (of 19 years this summer!) and I bought our very first modest home, 5 minutes from the ocean shore, surrounded by birds, seals, otters, and a bustling artsy neighbourhood.  We are doing well!  But boy do we have some catching up to do!

I temporarily stopped offering sessions for a few years.  Initially, I was giving myself a break because even though I started my psychic business spending most of every Sunday doing sessions, at that time I was working part-time.  When we moved to Victoria I switched to a full time job yet I didn’t scale back my session schedule at all, and guess what?  I burned out!  Shocker!  So I scheduled myself a few months break.

And then that break turned into six months – and I was doing really well.  I was able to focus on my health and made enough progress that I was also able to return to horseback riding!  My very favourite sport in the world!  I even started lessons with an excellent coach and leased a lovely mare, who I rode twice a week.

In December 2023 the unexpected happened, as it does sometimes in life.  I fell off that lovely mare during a lesson.  I was going quite fast, and she was 16 hands tall – pretty big for a horse!  I was so surprised to find myself in the air.  I was used to riding western, and as other western riders will tell you, your horse would have to be pretty determined to get you off a western saddle.  

But I was not riding western, I was learning a new discipline – dressage!  I love dressage, working towards the old cavalry battle maneuvers of 1000 years ago, building precision skill and finding balance in riding as I never had before.  I was a confident rider thanks to riding western, so when I lost my stirrup while cantering in a circle I wasn’t even worried – I was sure I’d be able to pick it up again… and then I was in the air.

“This will be fine” I thought to myself as I felt my body rotate in the air.  Riders fall all the time.  It’s a part of riding. 

It was not fine. 

I landed on my lumbar and broke my back.  And that day determined my life for the next two years. 

My poor Sweetie actually saw me fall, it was the first time she came to watch one of my lessons, so she was there to ride in the ambulance with me, she was there when the CT scan tech commented “yeah, it’s definitely broken it’s the worst I’ve ever seen.”  She is amazing and I’m forever grateful for the absolute rock solid support she gave. 

I am grateful for my neurosurgeon who operated two days later to fuse my spine with cadaver bone and titanium, so I could walk again – left leg fully numb, but obeying commands. 

I am grateful for my second physiotherapist who was able to help me when the first one couldn’t.  Two years later I’m still working with him regularly – but I won’t jump ahead!

A few months after my surgery I developed a new back pain, returned to the hospital for an MRI and was shown that one of the screws in my hardware had failed, which is a rare but not unknown complication.  So I had to heal with all of my upper body weight being directed unevenly to one side of my pelvis, and it’s no surprise I developed an SI joint injury with all that unbalanced force.

All that time I had to fight for my mobility.  I was in pain every day, and my best hope for recovery was to manage my pain well enough that movement was possible, and then work with my physio to ensure I developed all of my stabilizing muscles, rebuilding a fragile scaffolding to support my halting ambulation. 

It was a very difficult first year, and my friends including one who I know is reading this now really helped to see me though, sending me daily text messages, making plans, being encouraging. 

Four months after the fall I could walk without a walker, but it was painful.  One year after the accident my bones finally started to fuse and the pain was greatly reduced!  1.5 years later I was finally off all pain medication!  The donated bone and my own bone all grew together, and eventually took the stress off of the broken hardware which will exists as a relic in my body and on airport metal detector imaging for the rest of my life. 

Last summer I returned to swimming in the ocean, and discovered the frigid water gave me total pain relief for days.  Two years after the fall I have returned to most of the activities I love – and I made the difficult decision to continue to love horses but across a fence.  I returned to my old barn and visited some sweet horses of friends, but found my body was too anxious and vulnerable-feeling, and I thought, “this is optional, I don’t actually have to return to riding.” 

Any horse person will relate to how hard that decision can be, and it seems like it’s more common for horse people to just continue to ride against medical advice.  In my case, I’ll give them treats and pets, but my riding days are past, and I’m fine with that.  I worked so hard to get my life and mobility back, the risk of riding isn’t worth it. 

It has now been 2 years and 6 months since the fall, and I’m in better physical shape now than I was when I was riding.  I’ve continued to figure out some health mysteries and my most recent bloodwork has shown my inflammation markers are negligible for the first time in 15 years!  Overtly and covertly, my health is moving in the right direction, and I think I’m finally in a balanced sustainable groove in my new life. 

Which means I now have the physical and mental energy to start accepting session appointments again!

It’s been so long! 

I will only be offering one session per month right now, I may offer more if I find I have the capacity, and if there is enough demand. 

But! I do have some vacation coming up and I would love to offer some extra sessions in the first week of July, as I know some of you reading this have been waiting for YEARS!

I hope to talk to you soon! CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR SESSION NOW!