I just didn’t know how that was going to happen. I’ve always absolutely loved working with kids, but I always wanted to be able to teach about this on a broader scale. I feel like this whole experience has propelled me toward a new way to teach about speech therapy and AAC. I reduced my hours and then stopped when I was really getting into writing the book. Q: Are you still teaching children to communicate, or have you completely turned your focus on Stella?Ī: I’m not doing one-on-one therapy anymore. It’s called the “ Talking Pet Starter Set.” And what’s really nice about the buttons is you can just keep adding more if you want to. That’s all really easy to find on Amazon. Recently, I partnered with Learning Resources, the company who makes the buttons, and created a pack that comes with the buttons and also activities and tips written by me, so that when people get their first pack of buttons or more later on, they have some more activities that they can do and some guidance of how to get started with their dogs. You just put batteries in them and press a button and record any word into them. Q: Can the average person build a communication device for their pet on their own?Ī: I started by buying a box of recordable answer buzzers. I think for my personal journey with Stella, it really helped that she was a puppy because this was brand new, and I was just taking it step by step. A lot of people who have seen this and have immediately started with their pets who are older have had success.

Is it easier to teach a young dog tricks versus an older dog?Ī: It’s definitely possible to teach older dogs. Q: You and Stella met when she was weaned. It’s so exciting to see this enthusiasm, curiosity and empowerment that people can just try something and see how it goes, and see what they discover.

And I’ve seen people try with some other animals too. Since it came out, people from around the world have started teaching their own dogs some people have started teaching cats.

What I wanted was to show people what’s possible (in) this whole new era of interspecies communication. I think the book will have an even bigger impact now. Was that the plan for the release of the book?Ī: It’s kind of funny how it ended up working out with the pandemic because now there’s just so many more dog owners in the world, because so many people adopted pets in their home. Q: Given the pandemic, your tips could be something fun to engage the whole family.

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