Improving communication with dogs
I don't know how much dogs understand of what we say to them. The questions and answers below say that most of what we say are confusing sounds to dogs — kind of like the sounds grown-ups make in the Charlie Brown cartoon shows on TV maybe. They just single out and focus on the words they know. I guess that could be true.
I wrote a story for Dog News a couple of years ago about a dog named Rico in Germany. (Sorry the story's not online now but you can find other stories about Rico.) Rico is a super-smart dog who has been studied by researchers to find out how he learns. He knows over 200 different words. That's a lot more than the average dog. (Koko the Gorilla, who has been learning sign language for decades, knows approximately 1000 words.) The researchers were wondering if he's the Einstein of dogs. After doing lots of testing with him, mostly involving toys, they figured out that he learns in much the same way that a human toddler learns. This was a breakthrough because previously no one suspected that dogs learned the way human children learned. Now they're thinking that dogs are more similar to us than anyone ever thought.
For example, Rico knew the names of all of his regular toys. When the researchers told him to go get a squidipuss, or something he'd never heard of, he could go into the next room and figure out that the toy was the one that he'd never seen before. When he was tested again a month later, he had the same amount of recall for these new objects as a human child. He's a remarkable dog. But, is he an isolated case? Right now no one is sure. Other dogs probably learn the same way even if they don't have Rico's big vocabulary.
Your dog can probably learn a lot more words than he currently knows. Rico seems to enjoy learning, but I think all dogs do, at least to some extent. Who knows where the limits are for teaching a dog?
From the Searcy Daily Citizen
Improving communication with dogs
Everyone knows how important it is to communicate with your dog. Teaching the dog to obey simple commands is essential to maintaining a good relationship, and obedience may be crucial to your dog’s health and safety. According to the article “Dog Talk: Keep It Simple, by Margaret Littman (dogcentral.msn.com), understanding how dogs understand us is essential to good communication.
Q: How can I improve my dog’s vocabulary?
A: Dogs can be trained to understand a fairly large vocabulary. Dogs do become conditioned to some words through repetition and association — they associate positive and negative experiences with certain words. That is why “consistency, practice, and patience is essential to training your dog.
Q: How do dogs hear?
A: Most of what we say to a dog is just confusing sounds. That’s why a dog will tilt its head and stare at you in confusion when you carry on long conversations with it. Dogs try to anticipate our commands, and begin to react to the first sound of words we use. Similar first sound commands, such as sit and stay, can confuse the dog. Long sentences and complex commands are also confusing. To a dog, “sit down” is actually two commands and potentially confusing. Use one word commands, and for especially important commands, such as the “recall,” train your dog to come to a positive sounding word. Words like “yahoo” or “yippee” are difficult to say in a negative tone, and the dog is much more likely to respond positively. Some experts believe that “higher-pitched, happy words” should be used to encourage certain behaviors, while “short, bark-like words” should be used to discourage behavior. Similarly, “crisp, short sounds” should be used to discourage behavior (“no”), while “longer words with more soothing sounds” work better to encourage (“gooooood”).
