A French bulldog using her talk buttons to demand foot rubs from her owner has gone viral on social media, racking up more than 4 million views.
The TikTok video shows Pop Tart (@poptartfrenchie) repeatedly pressing a button that says “foot rub now,” making her request three times before her owner finally gives in. Once he does, Pop Tart appears more than satisfied.
Pop Tart’s owner, Robin Maxwell, 59, from Texas, told Newsweek that, once her dog understood what the button meant, she wasted no time putting it to use.
“Once she realized the button meant ‘foot rub,’ she decided it was her personal service bell,” Maxwell said. “She presses it multiple times a day and is not shy about reminding her dad when he’s ignoring it.”
In the footage, Pop Tart can be seen pressing the button before spinning around, lying down, and propping her foot up—clearly expecting the promised rub.
Maxwell said Pop Tart quickly learned how the button worked.
“The training didn’t take long at all. As soon as she realized that pressing the button would get her a foot rub, she picked it up immediately,” she said. “She’s very smart and very determined.”
Maxwell added that the behavior fits Pop Tart’s personality perfectly.
“I always tell people she was born bossy—she’s definitely a little diva,” she said.
TikTok Can’t Get Enough
Viewers were quick to weigh in, with one popular comment joking: “She’s thinking OMG [oh my God] why can’t I train this guy??” The comment had more than 78,000 likes at the time of writing.
Maxwell replied: “Oh she must think he’s untrainable at this point.”
Another user asked: “How long does this go on for? Every night? Four hours?”
Maxwell responded: “Every night until my husband quits.”
Do Talking Buttons Really Work?
In 2023, Susan Hazel, an associate professor at the University of Adelaide’s School of Animal and Veterinary Science, and Eduardo J. Fernandez, a visiting assistant professor at the Florida Institute of Technology, wrote in an article for The Conversation that dogs cannot truly understand human language.
Instead, the researchers explained that canines respond to commands such as “sit” through operant conditioning—a form of learning where behaviors are shaped by rewards. In simple terms, dogs learn to associate certain sounds or cues with outcomes, such as receiving a treat.
The following year, more research led by Federico Rossano, from The Department of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego, tested whether it mattered who used a word—either the dog’s owner or a stranger—and whether the word was spoken aloud or played by pressing a soundboard button.
The researchers found that canines responded correctly to play‑related and outside‑related words regardless of who presented them or how the words were delivered.
Overall, the findings suggest that pet dogs can be successfully taught by their owners to link specific soundboard words with real‑world outcomes. Crucially, canines responded appropriately even without extra cues, such as their owner’s body language—suggesting they were reacting to the words themselves rather than simply following visual signals.