Todd Talks - Response to Jackson Galaxy Video

This video is in response to a @JacksonGalaxy video (link below) where I believe he is saying that cats who use buttons are not truly communicating but rather it is just a trained response, push this button and I get something. While I agree with Jackson that cats are not fully domesticated like dogs I do not feel that keeps them from communicating with people.

Todd is a 6 year old neutered male cat who has been with us since he was 3 months old. We started exploring the possibilities of communicating with each other through the use of recordable buttons one year ago. In that time Todd has learned and understands 32 words and still has a hunger to learn more. Together we are only learning individual words and concepts. About 5 months in Todd started using multiple words to ask for what he wanted example “Play” “Bird Toy”, “Want” “Laser Mouse”, etc. Todd has continued to expand on this using 3 and now 4 words at a time example “Soon” “Play” “Todd” “String Thing”.

He has also started using the buttons to just tell me things. He recently told me he was going to take a nap by pressing “Sleep” and then he gets up, goes to my recliner and goes to sleep in it. He told me “Todd” “Sleep” so I picked him up and put him in his basket on my desk, he moved to Glamour’s basket and went to sleep. Glamour found him in her basket asleep and swatted him in the head. He got up and said “No” which I believe was directed at Glamour then told me “Ouch” “Sleep”. I think ouch sleep is a great way to describe being woken up with a swat to the head. There was no request here and he wanted nothing other than to communicate to me what had happened.

I believe I have provided a fair amount of examples in this video showing Todd using the buttons to communicate what he is going to do or what has happened to him as well as using them to express far more than is necessary just to get what he wants.

@JacksonGalaxy I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Link to Jackson Galaxy's video:    • Видео  

Update: It appears this video has been made private now and can no longer be viewed.

At the time of this video, Todd is a 6-year-old neutered male cat. Todd and his dad have been learning to communicate with each other since May of 2022 with the help of recordable buttons. We aim to let Todd express himself and tell me his wants and needs. Currently, Todd has 32 words on his soundboard. This channel is dedicated to Todd learning to “talk”. If you would like to see more of Todd and his day-to-day life please visit his Facebook page.

Links:
Todd on FaceBook:   / spiffykitty  
Todd on IG:   / the_chronicles_of_todd