¿Se habla Spaniel? — Dogs and Language: Part 1

By Jon Bastian
You may think that your dog understands the words you’re saying, but that’s not necessarily the case. In two easy exercises, we’re going to show you how to connect with your dog without a word.

“Sit” by Any Other Name

If you’re bilingual, have you trained your dog in more than one language? If you only speak one language, have you ever tried nonsense words on your dog? Either way, the purpose of this exercise is to separate the language you speak from the commands you give your dog.
Whether you’re bilingual or monolingual, for this exercise you will need to come up with a list of words in a language you’ve never used with your dog before. Basically, you will substitute the commands your dog knows with words your dog has never heard.
Go on. Dig up that high school Spanish. Go to an online translator, pick a random language, and make a list. Make up meaningless words. The important point is this: pick one word in the new language and match it to a command your dog knows.
For the next week, only use the replacement words whenever you would use the familiar commands — but think the familiar commands while saying the new words. It also helps if the new words don’t sound like the old commands — choosing the German “sitz!” to replace the English “sit” wouldn’t really work, but using the Turkish word for sit, “otur,” would be ideal because they do not sound at all alike.
If you’ve done this exercise right, very soon after you change the words, you should find your dog responding to them without hesitation, as if you’re still speaking the language they know.