I’ve always been amazed that dogs can understand the spoken language. My amazement with it was solidified as a kid when our family was visiting Quebec City and I came to the realization that their dogs “spoke” French. My older brother told the family restaurant dog to “assis-toi” and the dog sat. Man, that was grand.
Lately, as a dog owner, I’m flabbergasted at the number of commands our pooch knows:
Sit
Outside
Supper
Hungry
Dog food
Mommy
Daddy
Toy
Deer
Bed time
Come here
Stay
Upstairs
Downstairs
Drink
Walk
Who’s there?
No
Off
Get down
Okay
This way
I’m sure there are more, but dogs have always been special to me and the fact that they can remember so many commands is a big part of that.
Ha! I’m pretty sure I could beat your dog in a vocabulary contest. Best out of three, at least anyway. Your dog might have the advantage in spelling though, not sure.
It’s rough when you start spelling those key words, to avoid exciting the dog…and then the dog “learns to spell”. They get just as excited for “treat” as they do for “T-R-E-A-T”
Then you have to put your thinking cap on and come up with other phrases to use, like “is it time for the dog to consume yet?” to avoid saying “eat”.
My buddy has a dog that can retrieve the correct squeaky toy by name. He has about 20 of them. If you say “Where’s your zebra?”, he will run around until he finds it, and then shakes it furiously!
OTOH, lots of times they are reacting to our tones of voice. I used to insult our big dogs horribly, using a loving tone of voice. “Are you a really STUPID dog? Oh, yes, you are. You’re just a complete idiot…” The animal would wag all over as if to say, “Oh, yes, yes I am.”
My daughter’s Peke knows the usual words like outside, bacon, and bread. We can also say other words in the same tone and get a reaction. He has often clamored for various vegetables based only on our tone of voice.
We used to tease my pointer dog, Annie. We’d ask, “What’s your favorite material? cotton? no…leather? no… oh, I know, gopher hide!” Man she used to go crazy for gopher hide. I don’t know why.
The other thing that was fun was to say “Do you wanna…?” This would wake her up from a dead sleep, and she’d immediately stand excitedly waiting for the next word… Treat? Ride? Walk? Ball? Then we’d say “Bath?” She’d nearly injure herself scrambling to hide under a bed or coffee table. Oh man, I miss that dog.
We are pretty informal with our dogs, but one thing we’ve always been in the habit of is using a gesture with the words. Boy are we glad we did that - my internet namesake is now deaf (or pretty close to it), so words are somewhat meaningless, but he still knows what to do based on gestures. Plus, the other two dogs clue him in to sutff.
I can understand a bit of Woof myself: Donkey, next door dog, two dogs from across the pasture, person walking past, car turning on to our road and cane toad are some of the barks I can recognize.
What I’ll never understand is their ability to tell the difference between drawers and door sounds, even when they’re the same as every other drawer and door.
One of my old dogs hated getting combed and we always kept the comb in the same drawer. You could open every other drawer in the house and she wouldn’t do a thing, but open up that one drawer and she gets up and runs. Keep in mind we have the same drawers throughout the whole area that her comb is in.
Current dogs both know the difference between the closet where their new toys/chewies are, and the closet directly next to it. Again…same doors/design but they just know
Edit: I also am amazed at their ability to recognize cars. The dogs usually lay by the front door and car after car after car can go by and they don’t do a thing, but as soon as one of ours come by they scamper and bark. I’m not even talking about a car pulling into the driveway or slowing down or anything…they pick it out down the street
Ginger and Holly hate our basement stairs. They refuse to go down them. One day, I carried them each down there and then used a whole lot of coaxing (and cheese) to try to get them to go UP the stairs. Ginger finally made it about 2/3 of the way up but she wouldn’t go that last bit. I’m assuming it’s because it’s dark there.
Holly absolutely refused to take her back feet off the floor. Finally, my boyfriend made a deal with her.
I had a female Wirehaired Fox Terrier who could do the same thing! She was scary smart. I’d pile all of her stuffed toys, about 15 to 20 of them, on the bed in the bedroom and take her into the living room. I’d tell her to sit and then I’d ask her “Where’s your frog?” She’d then take off running into the bedroom, jump on the bed and start rooting around in the pile to get the frog. She’d grab it, run back to me and drop it at my feet. Then she’d be ready to go again. She was awesome and I miss her terribly.
She also had a grungy yellow rubber ball that she carried everywhere. At night when we would sit on the couch to watch TV, she’d get up there beside us with her yellow ball in her mouth. She’d sit there for awhile and then she’d open her mouth and the ball would just pop out. She’d sit and watch it roll away across the floor until it completely stopped against the far wall or a chair. Then she’d hop down to fetch it and start the process all over again. She’d do this over and over. It was the funniest thing to watch. God, I loved that dog!
Heh. I was thinking about starting a thread like this.
Sometimes I’ll talk to my dog, Brewster, in the third person. I’ll say things to him like, “Does he want a treat? Does Brewster want a treat?” “Does he want outside? Does he want to go outside?” “Is he a good boy? Is he a good boy? Yes, he is. He’s a good dog.” He’ll respond with his tongue hanging out and tail wagging just as if I were speaking to him in the first person.
He’s also learned to respond when I say any kind of word that rhymes with “treat.” It’s pretty amusing when I say, “Do you want to smell my feet?” and he comes running.
Our dog was a stray his first year of life and kenneled at the shelter his second year. His brain was like a giant sponge when we brought him home. He didn’t know how to do anything but he’s a quick learner. I can point to something and say what it is, then repeat the word the next day and he will either point or go to that thing.
But I still have to be careful when I’m watching something intense on t.v., and say “DAMN” He’s usually snuggled beside me on the couch, and will jump down and look at me like . Then he’ll get back on the couch. Lather… rinse… repeat. By the third time he’ll get fed up and leave, looking at me over his shoulder like I’m crazy.
I have a Mini Schnauzer that absolutely refuses to play fetch. Her favorite game is “Chase Me”. She’ll go fetch a toy if I throw it but then she runs away, pausing and looking over her shoulder to be sure I’m chasing HER! She’s almost 11 yrs old now so I gave up on teaching her to fetch. I’ve spent many hours chasing her around to keep her happy, though. I think she knows exactly what she’s doing…
I remembered something else about my Fox Terrier and her ole grungy yellow ball. She’d take it with her outside sometimes and forget to bring it back in the house. Late one evening she started frantically running through the house like she was looking for something. She’d stop in the doorway to the living room, stare intently at me for a short time and then take off again. I was sitting on the couch watching TV when she first started doing this. I remember thinking “What on earth is wrong with her? Does she need to go out?” The second I got up to see what was wrong, she took off down the hall with me following behind her saying “What? What is it?”, like she was gonna answer me.
I made a guess at what she was doing when she started crawling around under the beds, searching. When I finally realized the ball wasn’t in the house, I had to get a flash light and go outside in the dark to search a 2 1/2 acre fenced back yard for that damn slimy rubber yellow ball, the love of her life! Over the next 12 years, I did this countless times because she wouldn’t settle down at night until she had it with her.
I also had to search high and low in different stores to replace it when the old one got too chewed up. It had to look and feel just like the old one or she didn’t want it. I tried different colors, pink and orange, but oh no, she didn’t want them. It HAD TO BE solid yellow, soft rubber so she could squish it, about the size of a tennis ball with little nubby flowers or grooves on the surface.
Bless her sweet heart, I buried her with her ole yellow ball and her favorite blanket. She developed cancer at 13 and I had to let her go. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life, I kid you not, people. Absolutely BROKE my heart… She was definitely ONE OF A KIND!!! Her name was Zayna but I called her MooMoo. I’ve had several dogs in my life but she was definitely the smartest.
. Then he’ll get back on the couch. Lather… rinse… repeat. By the third time he’ll get fed up and leave, looking at me over his shoulder like I’m crazy.
