She SPEAKS!!!

 Well, this isn't the first time Maizy True spoke... but it IS the first time on camera!!! Yes, I was bribing her with brisket!!! 

She has made a 2 word request on Saturday...not on camera, but I just about died! I'm so proud of her! Many dogs take months to begin interacting and I know she is applying meaning to the buttons. 

My house is NOT camera ready ya'll!! But that's another issue! I'm loving this journey with her! 

But there is so much to do to PREPARE for this little talking dog experiment! Things I never thought of!  You really need to do some data tracking. Many people write things down but Maizy currently has 16 responses that I've bothered to record. It's a good idea to keep track this way...it's searchable. It's easier to look for patterns such as time of day or frequent words when they have a larger vocabulary. One of the dogs from the many boards I follow actually kept talking about "pee" and a day later said "pee ouch".... had a UTI!!  So seeing the pattern is important. 

On a side note, the Fluent Pet bulletin board page TheyCanTalk.org has many of the getting started resources if you are interested. It was there I learned how to create the form that fills in her data tracking. I had used forms to assess students when I was teaching online early in the pandemic so it was a pretty easy jump for me. Maizy's form looks like this:

I can pull it up on my phone and I can also edit that spreadsheet if I think of something later...or make meaning of what she was trying to say with her limited 5 word vocabulary!  

Then there is button placement planning. The "old timers" have really scared the heck out of me. All of the ones I follow have had to move the buttons for some reason or another... realizing one button is used most often with a word that's waaaayyy over there is a frequent complaint. And when the buttons get moved... the dogs regress and stop using them for a while! Think about it: HOW would you feel if you got up and someone decided the S on your keyboard needs to be by the T? And the A would work better by the F? It would befuddle you! And dogs have a shutting down reaction to this. 

While I've found many of the circular layouts on TheyCanTalk.org helpful... I'm a spreadsheet girl. So I made a simply Excel sheet with blocks of six .... six words fit on a soundboard... and grouped by theme.
This is my most current board plan and...it changes daily.

And then, if you want to share this... and I've never wanted to share anything MORE... there's all the social media BS to deal with. UGH!