How To Talk To Your Dog

How true it is…

I’ve seen a lot of dogs getting yelled at by their humans this way. The human asks the dog to sit, and maybe the dog doesn’t hear, or is taking his time. So the human starts yelling, “I told you to sit, Spot! Why aren’t you sitting? Sit down! Sit! Move it!”

That’s a lot of words to just mean “sit.” In fact, there are three commands in there: sit, down, and move! Which one should Spot do? He doesn’t know! He just hears his human getting agitated. So he tries to placate this irrational human by doing all of them, which makes the human madder! Silly human…

All the human had to do was reiterate “sit.” If Spot was still confused, use a treat to lure him into a sitting position, or just tap his butt to remind him. Easy.

Dogs are just like humans. We have good days and bad days. Sometimes we forget what we’re supposed to be doing, or just don’t want to do it. If our humans just tell us and show us very clearly what they want, we’re usually happy to do it. If my mom wants me to “place” on something, she touches it and says “place!” I hop right up. If she just gestured toward it, and said, “Ok, place on it. Arthur, we’re doing place now, get on the place, go on. Arthur, get up there!” I would be so confused, I probably wouldn’t do anything other than look at her like she’s crazy (which she would be for talking like that!).

So just remember that your dog doesn’t understand English the way you do. We don’t know synonyms, or elaborations. Give us the word we know and some patience, especially if it is new! If we get confused, repeat the command, and maybe show us what you want. We’ll understand much faster that way, and everyone will have more fun!

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