Which word: Toilet, Outside, or Walk?

A Button Buddy asks…

Our dog Panda is around 6 years old and we've had her for 2.5 years. We haven't yet started with buttons but would like to do so quite soon. She is an Eastern European Village Dog (Romanian street dog), who has some shepherd/herding traits.

We're trying to decide on starter words but are a bit unsure what is best to use for outside/toilet/walk etc.

Panda doesn't go to the toilet of any kind in the garden unless she has a dicky belly, so all her normal toileting happens on walks (even if they are short strolls around the block). Exceptions to this are if we stop at the services on a long drive, or if we're staying elsewhere with a yard/garden, in which case she's pretty good at doing what she needs to at the appropriate time.

We've tried many approaches to get her to pee in the garden but without much success, so we are assuming that this will be the case for a while. Wherever she is, we tend to mark with 'toilet' when she does go (would this count as modelling?). So for Panda, outside/walk/toilet might mean the same thing - outside usually means a walk of some kind, and walk/outside invariably means a toilet opportunity.

We'd really like her to be able to tell us when she needs the toilet and when she wants to go for a proper walk, but are struggling to know what to do for the best in terms of first words. Any guidance would be much appreciated - we're keen to set her up for success as much as possible.

I’m so glad you asked this question because it’s a subject we’ve wanted to cover for a while. We humans really really care about where our dogs toilet. I’d say after Love You and Ouch, Potty or some variation is the concept teachers most want their learners to be able to communicate effectively. The thing is, it’s not that motivating to dogs. An older dog who is well house trained will probably have more opinions about where is the proper place to go, but that dog probably also has a way to communicate that need. And at the end of the day, if a dog has to go, they’ll go. So Potty/Toilet/Poop/Pee is just not a great starter concept. It’s motivating to us, but not particularly to our learners and they’re the ones who we’re trying to motivate. It’s definitely a concept you can and probably should add at some point, but not as a starter.

There’s so much going on outside besides toilet.

Outside is a pretty ubiquitous starter word (mostly because the big social media accounts tended to start with it. I’m not convinced it’s as universally motivating as people think, but use your own judgment based on your knowledge of your learner). But Outside isn't a euphemism for pooping, Outside is a place. Walks happen Outside, Potty happens Outside, but also anytime anybody leaves the house they go Outside. Sometimes Outside is Hot or Cold or there’s Water. Noise Outside, Bird Outside, Stranger Outside, Play Outside. The sheer versatility of Outside is what makes it useful as a starter word. There are a gajillion modeling opportunities and its meaning is broad. 

As you go along with the buttons you’ll be able to add more specific words. In your case, you’re already using “Toilet” as a marker word, and yes that’s verbal modeling, keep it up! So “Toilet” is a great word to add eventually. I would also suggest that you start differentiating between pee and poop, just because so soooo many learners love to talk about them separately. I just used “Potty” to mean both and that was the word we put on the board but I eventually added “Poop” because so many other learners used it in unexpected ways and the ways Bertie has used it have been very surprising. 

Walk as a starter word is more dependent on your specific learner. If Panda is super excited about walks and loves to go on them, and you guys can be flexible enough to take her on lots of extra walks if she starts spamming the button then it can be a good starter. I wouldn’t pair it with Outside though, because they’ll be hard for her to differentiate early on. So if walks are more perfunctory in your household, you go on one in the morning and one after dinner and then a few quick potty trips throughout the day but it’s not Panda’s biggest joy, then I would hold off on it for now. You can definitely add it later! But you do want to keep starter words as distinct from each other as you can. 

All of this is stuff you can be modeling verbally! You just don’t want to overwhelm her with buttons right at the beginning. So you can put down Outside as a button and be saying verbally “Let’s go for a Walk Outside.” You might also distinguish between kinds of walks. In our house we go on “Park Walks” or “Smell Walks.” A Smell Walk is a trip dictated entirely by the dog, around the complex or maybe neighborhood. We go at his speed and he can spend as much time smelling stuff or peeing on stuff as he likes. A Park Walk is a trip to the park and usually there’s more structure there. A set path and/or pace. You can definitely start distinguishing between a “Potty Walk” aka a quick trip outside so Panda can relieve herself, and “Park Walk” (or whatever descriptor makes sense for your situation).