How TuxnDog Uses Her Talking Gizmos to Train Count Sydney
Most people train their dog to sit, stay, or fetch. But what if a dog could train another dog—using speech buttons? What if a Cane Corso could give a trick command to her neighbor on the deck, and that dog followed it with precision?
Welcome to the world of TuxnDog, a talking Cane Corso who doesn’t just communicate with humans—she gives button-based commands to Count Sydney the Dog, her neighbor and counting partner. And yes, there are videos to prove it.
But before we jump into this groundbreaking canine-to-canine communication, let’s rewind to the moment it all began.
[TuxnDog & Sydney] #SmartDogs #TalkingDog #ViralDogHow It Started: One Button, One Purpose
The very first word TuxnDog learned wasn’t “bed” or “play”—it was “potty.” Within 12 hours of arriving home as a puppy, she had learned to press a button to ask to go outside.
That first night, she slept beside me. Every couple of hours, I got up and modeled the “potty” button—pressing it and saying the word aloud while heading to the door. By daybreak, she had it.
As we approached the door one last time that morning, TuxnDog ran ahead, jumped in the air, and landed squarely on the button. It sounded once—then she pressed it again, looked straight up at me, and clearly said with her eyes: “Let’s go already.”
From that moment forward, she couldn’t get enough. Buttons became her language, her obsession, her comedy, and eventually… her teaching tool.
Count Sydney the Dog: A Trick Legend in His Own Right
Before TuxnDog arrived, I had already spent over a year training my neighbor’s dog, Count Sydney, to count to ten on command. I filmed him regularly—long, uncut videos on YouTube show his intelligence in action.
Sydney had a natural gift for numbers, but also for unusual physical tricks, including:
- Donkey kicks with his left or right leg on command
- Jumping while counting—barking mid-air and landing just before finishing his count
- Responding to voice or button-based commands with accurate bark-counts
He was even introduced to buttons early on, but after one exhilarating zoomy session—where a button went off mid-run—he spit it out and never touched one again. However, he would always respond to my voice or a button press made by me.
Then Came TuxnDog… and the Game Changed
The first time Count Sydney met TuxnDog, he popped up out of the blue and came trotting onto our riverside deck in Shady Cove, Oregon. I happened to catch their very first meeting on video—and they hit it off immediately. Their natural chemistry sparked an idea: what if TuxnDog could give Sydney trick commands using speech buttons?
I set up a few talking gizmos on the deck and tested the idea—and it worked right from the very first session. Tuxn pressed “Sydney,” then “let’s count,” and finally, a number. Sydney responded by barking the exact number of times she asked for, as if they’d been rehearsing for weeks.
Later, while I was playing with a new toy on the deck, TuxnDog pressed the button labeled “new toy” and, to my surprise, applied it to Sydney entirely on her own. She called his name, said “play with me,” and “new toy,” then physically dropped the toy in front of Sydney and nudged it toward him with her nose. That moment—captured on video—wasn’t just adorable. It was proof that she wasn’t just copying commands—she was forming original ideas and sharing them.
The Future of Dog-to-Dog Communication?
Most people think of talking buttons as a way for dogs to communicate with humans. But TuxnDog is flipping the script. She’s not just pressing buttons—she’s giving commands to another dog. And that dog is following them.
This opens up a world of possibilities for what we call cross-species trick training—where animals learn from each other using technology, voice, and visual cues.
All of this takes place on our riverside deck in the sleepy ‘river runs through it’ town of Shady Cove, Oregon—a peaceful setting that makes their unique connection even more remarkable.
In Part 2, we’ll go deeper into the evolving communication between TuxnDog and Count Sydney, explore what this means for cognitive dog research, and introduce the full Tawk’n Tux’n Talking Gizmos line—now available for purchase.
Stay tuned, and in the meantime, you can watch Count Sydney perform his amazing counting tricks and more on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@TuxnDog
Written by Sky Blue Swain
Creator of Tawk’n Tux’n Talking Gizmos
Advocate of Freedom of Speech for All Dogkind