Dogs don’t have spoken language capability. They naturally read body language. They can tell if we’ve had a bad day, if we’re stressed, happy or anxious by looking at our faces or the set of our shoulders. I expect they can read tiny changes in our expressions that even other people miss. But we train our dogs to respond to verbal commands, because we’re verbal.
What Comes Next
Fortunately for us, dogs are experts at ‘predictors’, which is trainer speak for connecting the dots or figuring out ‘what comes next’. So when we say “Sit” and the puppy sits, it’s because he’s learned that when he hears that sound and he sits, he gets a cookie. It wouldn’t matter if you said scratch or sniff instead of sit, if you pared those words with a sit and a cookie, he’d sit. But he doesn’t understand language, so you have to teach him specific words.
Don’t Be Deceived
Your dog may love the sound of your voice, but don’t confuse interest with communication. Explaining things in words won’t get the message through. But because they seem to understand our words, and we’re so dedicated to language, it can be hard to understand what really happens when we try to communicate with our dogs. I’ll make up a story to illustrate how dogs trick us into thinking they’re know what we’re saying.
Keep Your Eyes On The Prize
Let’s say, for example, that a student and her puppy are learning the sit command. The puppy has been lured into the sit position 5 or 6 times and has made the connection between sitting and getting a treat. The student says “Sit” and the puppy responds and receives the treat. It seems obvious that the puppy has very quickly understood both the concept of “sit” and the word his Mommy used to ask for the behavior. That’s pretty good for a creature that’s been on the planet for a few short weeks, eh?
Not So Fast
After class, our intrepid team goes home to show off their new skill, “sit” says his mommy and the puppy jumps up for the treat. They try again and the puppy leaps for joy. ‘What’s wrong with my puppy?,” the student is now wondering. He’s already forgotten his lesson! He understood it an hour ago, what happened?
What Really Happens
The puppy had been watching his mommy and the treat and he wasn’t listening to the words she’d said. His mommy stood and held the treat in exactly the same way each time they’d practiced. He’d noticed her movement and body position, but his mommy thought he was listening.
At home, he’s in a different place and mommy is holding the treat differently so he doesn’t recognize the signals. At class he’d tricked his mommy into thinking he understood her words, but he earned his treats by watching her movements. Now that’s dog smarts!
The Biggest Hurdle
We don’t have to train silently, but it’s easy to talk too much. Ideally the only words we would speak while training would be our dog commands, or better yet we’d use dog hand signals.
You may have noticed that while I’m talking to class I use hand signals to communicate with my dogs. I use hand signals because they offer my dogs a clear sign they can read without sorting through the mountain of words they don’t recognize and because hand signals are a language they innately understand.
Vision, The Dog Language
Dogs do learn to respond to words, with time and repetition. But the fastest way to teach your dog is with visual clues because his brain has the ability to recognize and remember them. Vision is the language of dogs, and offering a visual signal with your verbal command will help him to learn faster and remember better.
Links to Puppy Class 101 Articles:
- Welcome to Puppy Class
- Puppy Brain
- Easy as 1, 2, 3
- Who’s the Big Dog?
- Doggie Sheriff
- Watching Your Every Move
- Doggie Math 1+1=1
- Time Out For Puppies
i was woundering if anyone knows if the male dogs knows that he is the father to the puppies the female had?
Jane,
That’s an excellent question! Thanks for asking.
Dogs have a very strong family bond, and they are generally excellent parents, but it’s hard to say if dogs really understand the concept of ‘father’, the way that we do.
In wolf packs the entire pack raises the puppies born only to the alpha pair. Because the entire family unit cares for those puppies it raises an interesting question. Why would the aunts and uncles, cousins and siblings raise puppies that aren’t theirs?
Perhaps they do understand the concept of family. Or maybe they’re reacting to the hormones and chemical signals that we identify as feelings, in this case the family bonds we call love?
We don’t know and we’ll probably never know for sure. My guess is that dogs are more or less genetically programmed to experience ‘love’ for puppies, so that they’ll feed and protect the puppies.
I think that a dog is allowed to choose a mate and be with her during her pregnancy and delivery would clearly have feelings of care, and love and protection for the puppies. Or fatherly love.
But, do daddy dogs really know they are dads in human terms? Your guess is as good as mine.