Pushing the right buttons

8/5/2026

Parker Posey, a beagle mix, lets her owner, Sascha Crasnow, know when she’s hungry. But not by traditional means of barking or knocking a food bowl around.

Instead, Parker “speaks” by pressing word buttons on a special floor mat. For breakfast, Parker orders food by pressing the “food” and “play” button. Crasnow then asks Parker if she wants it in a puzzle or a snuffle mat, which is designed for foraging play when eating. 

“She’s picky. If she wants food in a puzzle, it’s not about the food; it’s about the experience,” she explains. 

Crasnow uses buttons based on augmented alternative communication technology, which was originally developed to help non-verbal people communicate. She discovered research by Christina Hunger, a speech pathologist who wrote a book about canine communication and founded the Talking Pet Movement. 

Crasnow adopted Parker from a rescue in 2021. Her stepdad sent her TikTok videos of a talking dog and suggested she try it for her new dog. Intrigued, she order six buttons, including basic commands for food and play.

Buttons are recorded using Crasnow’s voice. When training Parker, she says the word and models it, such as opening the door when pressing the “out” button. 

Parker caught on quickly and responded to two-phrase commands such as “out, all done.”

Crasnow ordered more buttons and currently uses more than 125 words. She uses combination words, as play and toy. 

“I’ll give her a choice, and she responds with a button. I’ll ask if she wants a squeaker toy or a box. She likes to shred cardboard,” she explains.

When a friend visited, Parker pushed the “play” and the “visit” buttons, meaning she wanted affection from the visitor. When Parker gets tense in her back muscles, she depresses the “massage” button. Parker uses buttons to make jokes. 

“She asked to refill her food, and I got up to do it, and she takes my place on the couch,” she says with a laugh. 

Crasnow keeps track of the words used on an app, with Parker averaging 80 buttons a day. She is also part of a research study that documents the dog’s increasing vocabulary. Friends are often skeptical about her talking dog. Yet, when they view Parker in person, it’s impactful.

“People get excited when they see it,” she says.

She says dogs can easily be misunderstood.

 “She’s a dog in a human world. We can’t read body language in dogs. This helps me to better communicate with her. We are more equals in deciding what her day looks like. She can tell me what type of enrichment she wants in the moment,” she explains. “It saves me time trying to figure out what she wants.”

Crasnow says the method helps make Parker’s life easier. 

“This gives her a better quality of life and more agency in her life,” she reflects. “She’s taught me the depth of the personality that dogs have.” ♦

Jackie Wilson has written hundreds of articles for CITYVIEW and the Iowa Living magazines. She covers ordinary people living extraordinary lives.