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Health & Fitness

Pawsitively Lakewood: Talking Dog

An insight into our communication with dogs and theirs with us.

Welcome to another Ask the Trainer from Pawsitively Lakewood.

Today, your dog would like to talk to you and I would like to help him. This blog is the first of a series about the ways your dog communicates with you and how he translates your response.

One of the biggest mistakes that we and our furry family members make is to assume that we're both speaking the same language. In our world today where wars and riots are born out of cultural faux pas, the odds of proper inter-species communication is fairly low.

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Today let's explore the world of talking dogs.

People like to talk. We figure that if we talk enough, our dogs will understand. Rarely do we pay attention, that speaking out loud isn't their primary way to talk, so it may not be the first thing he is “listening."

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A study was done on all the different ways that wolves communicate. The wolves only had three different verbal cues but over 40 visual behaviors they pay attention to.

Lucky for us dogs have changed since they left canis lupus behind.

Dogs have adapted over time to be our companions, part of our pack and our families. One way this is apparent is through a behavior that only humans and dogs exhibit. When we are talking to another person we look from the left side of their face and read across to the right, subconsciously processing what they are saying beyond just the words.

Unlike wolves, cats or even apes, only dogs pay attention to our facial movements by the same method. To emphasize this, dogs don't scan left to right with each other, just to us humans. Another adapted behavior that dogs use to help us out is barking.

If a dog is raised without coming in contact with barking dogs or people, he'll rarely bark. The primary reason for barking is to alert someone to a range of events from danger to simply being excited and wanting you to play. If he hears another dog barking he will want to bark as well. As he only has one word to use, tone and loudness are important. A louder or higher pitch bark can mean totally different things.

The lesson to learn from this is that saying a command to your dog in a normal tone of voice is a different word than if yelled it at your dog. When you yell/bark loudly at your dog it is perceived by your dog as joining in, just with new words.

The next problem we run into when talking to our dogs is sentence structure. Dogs don't use it. Imagine trying to put together a sentence using only one word. Dogs can't. The words just blur together as a larger single word. Yourdoghearsthesentenceassomethinglikethis.

Telling your dog to come, come come and come here, you are telling him three different words. Using all the options is fine but require you to teach them as separate commands.

Getting frustrated only exacerbates the situation as you start getting louder and quickly repeating the commands, creating a string of new and confusing words. Remember, when speaking to your dog, use single words without extra speed, loudness, or emotion*.

If you have any questions for our Ask the Trainer articles, email us at Samlakewood@gmail.com

*Note to readers: This is not to say that your dog isn't a good listener for your stories of the day. Just don't expect more than a tilt of the head or a roll-over for a good belly rub in reply.

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