Dakota knows a lot of different words or phrases but one of the funniest things that amazes me is that she recognizes the ring tone on my phone for my husband and knows that he is almost home. He usually calls when off work and on his way home (ive always said "oh daddy is calling"). I have different ring tones for different people and she can differentiate and she runs to the door and waits now just whenever my phone rings with his ring tone. Sooo cute!! She also knows who "grandma and grandpa" are, we have to be careful because if we just talk about them to her (like if i say "grandma is on the phone") she goes and sits at the front door waiting for them to show up.
Some dogs use tone of voice and body language but some dogs can understand not only words, but sometimes complete sentences. They all have at least some understanding of our communication.
My Frodo understands a lot, he knows all his toys by name and theres a lot of them. When its almost time for my son to come home from school, I'll say, go wait for your brother and he'll go sit on chair and look out the window for him.
On walks I'll say, have any deer been here and he'll go nose down and sniff out deer tracks. When my husband (military) is gone for any length of time, he'll look at our picture on the wall of my husband and I when I ask where's daddy?
Within 5 minutes of a visitor to the house, he will know them by name and go to them if asked. I also now have to spell the words car, park, cat, and walk although he's beginning to catch onto spelling.
If he knows he's going in car, he'll run around and look for my purse. He's very smart for me, but chooses to be selective when daddy's around. Mom means business, daddy means fun.
I have a Cairn Terrier that amazes my friends with his ability to know certain words, if I ask him where the bird is, he'll run to a tree and look up the trunk, if I ask where a mouse is, he runs into the barn between the bales of hay, if I ask where the lizard is he runs to the wall and looks up, and if a squirrel, he runs to the holes in the yard and starts digging, the hilarious thing though, is if I ask these questions while we are in the house he will jump up and try to bite me!
There is a NOVA special on how dogs communicate with people, it's really cool. If you have Netflix make sure to que it up, or do the online thing and stream it to your computer. The National Geographic dog special is okay, nowhere near as good as the NOVA one.
I can't talk to my dog. He might know one or two words that are in the sentences, but overall he's not getting the entire jist. What he can do is watch my eyes and mouth and body positioning to help with his interaction with me.
One tidbit from that NOVA thing was an experiment with chimps, wolves, infants and dogs. The experiment was a test to see which species "took a hint" from a human. The hint was a point, or a gesture towards the hidden food source. You'd think the best scores would go to the infant and the chimp, the primates that really depend on sight as the dominant source of feedback. Turns out the chimps were awful at it, the infants were only slightly better, the wolves were HORRIBLE while the dogs amazed the researches with just how subtle the hint needed to be. Even with puppies. The researchers wired up some people with vision tracking hardware and tracked how people (adults) scan other people's faces. Did the same with a host of dogs and it turns out that dogs go for the same main 3 indicators on the human face IN THE SAME ORDER. Dogs watch us like hawks, I can't twitch an eyebrow with my GSD twitching an ear in my direction. If I so much as think about eating that last peanut-butter cracker I will get the "please daddy...let me have some" face.
There is a NOVA special on how dogs communicate with people, it's really cool. If you have Netflix make sure to que it up, or do the online thing and stream it to your computer. The National Geographic dog special is okay, nowhere near as good as the NOVA one.
My two know certain words and phrases. For example, if I say 'do you wanna eat'...they wag their tails merrily as they run to the kitchen. I can say 'get in there' and it has two meanings-if we are in the house, it means get in their crates, if we are going outside it means get in their kennel. They are very easy to crate/kennel most of the time. However I believe a good deal of that is due to routine rather than their actual comprehension of what I am saying. They also know to behave differently based on different tones of voice, they get uber excited when I brush past a leash(thinking they are going to go for a ride), etc. So there are plenty of cues in everything I do that gets a variety of reactions from them.
My last dog knew certain phrases too. 'Go bye' obviously meant going for a ride. 'thats far enough' when on an off leash walk meant to wait for me to catch up and she always did. 'clean it' meant to wash her frisbee, and 'I can't reach it' meant that she dropped it too far away, so she would get it and come drop it at my feet. 'drop it' evidently meant to literally drop it at my feet. Never could get her to put a toy in my hand. But one word I KNOW she understood was Toy. So much so that I had to spell the word if I did not want to play.
Again, I believe that a great deal of this is based on the routines that we provide for our dogs versus them truly understanding each or even the majority of our words.
I am amazed by how much dogs understand and the efforts that they make to communicate with us. I've had my pup for 3 weeks and he knows his name, my name, my husband's name and the name of one of our other dogs--the one that occasionally acknowledges his existence.
Years ago I went on a large camping trip with about 15 other people. My big girl, Crusher, was about two years old. Some of the people she knew very well, some she had met a few times and others were strangers. We were gathered around the bonfire and imbibing tasty beverages. Crush was being velcro and annoying me so I told her "Go see Charlie" . Crusher knew Charlie very well and she walked around the fire and found him, Charlie greeted her and told her to "Find Cole"--Charlie's son whom Crush had met a few times. She went right to him. Now everyone around the bonfire starts calling Crusher and sending her to see other people. She went to everyone in the circle. I was so proud.
The next morning, she rolled in fresh moose poop...long ride back to town.
We've had some extremely intelligent dogs that understood lots of words, hand signals and body language. We got to the point with our first GSD Maxi, that certain words we would have to spell....and then she learned what we were spelling. He namesake, little Max was very vocal and actually tried to imitate human sounds. He had a vocabulary of over a dozen words and phrases. He would go MMMMMrommaa when I got home and other words like ride and park understandably. Most people wouldn't believe it....until they heard him. He died of EPI. Coco, our 5 year old GSD knows my body language so well, when a stranger pulls up he barks like a mad dog, but if I am calm, he sits beside me like a statue with no signs of aggression. He has the DH so well trained, he (the DH) knows who has pulled up in the driveway by Coco's bark. Both of our boys have found jobs in other cities in the past year and moved away. One day last week, one of them dropped in for a surprise visit, didn't call, we had no way to know he was coming. Coco heard someone and started barking and the DH said "Brandon's here." I said "No way, he didn't say anything about coming in" and he said "Well, Coco says he is here", and sure enough, he was. Came to the door a few minutes later. He had to come to court for a traffic ticket he got before he moved. I believe they understand more than we believe and if we pay close attention, we can understand them better as well.
I do not know about Sasha "understanding" me, but I KNOW she can talk, sooner or later she will speak up and say something. She is 5 1/2 years old, but I KNOW, any minute now she will start talking. I admit, I am more convinced of it after a beer or two, but gosh darn it, I KNOW she can talk......
I do not know about Sasha "understanding" me, but I KNOW she can talk, sooner or later she will speak up and say something. She is 5 1/2 years old, but I KNOW, any minute now she will start talking. I admit, I am more convinced of it after a beer or two, but gosh darn it, I KNOW she can talk......
OF COURSE she can talk... I saw Cats N Dogs movies (LOVE the GSD in the 2nd one... such a pretty dog!), all our pets are secretly having conversations about overthrowing each other as our dominant companion.
Diabla knows a command that means "go to the car". The other day I was at a park for an event with my dog and my mother. Since I already know that this ALWAYS happen I said my mom to watch...
When we arrived to the parking area I said Diabla to go to the car. She ran and sit next to a Jeep Wrangler instead of next to my little hatchback. I don't know if she is trying to tell me something or if she reads my subconscious because she always picks the bigger 4x4.
Saber's only 14 weeks old but she already knows a heck of a lot. If I ask her if she wants to go outside, she sits at the top of the stairs and waits for her leash. When we are outside, if she is done pottying she sits and looks at me until I say "let's go in the house" and then she gets up and heads to the door. When it is about 15 minutes til her mealtime, she goes and whines outside my bedroom door (her food is in there). And then I ask, "do you want your food?" and she jumps up and dances and wags her tail, and runs back and forth in the hall. I go to scoop the food and say "wait" and she backs up and sits down and mutters. Then I say "I need your bowl" and she races off to find her food dish and bring it to me (and sometimes throws it at me). Then I say " go in your crate" and in she goes in and waits.
If I say "let's go for a ride" she runs to the back of the car to get in. If I say "let's go for a walk" she heads down the sidewalk. She gets all excited if I mention the word "treat."
And, well, Speedy isn't a GSD, but he is pretty funny because if you say "you stink" he will slink off and hide behind the couch to avoid a bath.
my husbands lab/pitt mix who now belongs to his mom (they bonded on the last deployment and became inseparable) you cannot utter the word mcdonalds around. he will start salivating and drench EVERYTHING!!! and if you are a car he will pace back and forth looking for those golden arches. and then he will not stop till you buy him a double cheeseburger
I believe that Tank understands a lot of what me and my girlfriend say and do. For example, last night my girlfriend went upstairs to get a drink of water and forgot to turn the water in the sink off. Well, when she went to go back to the stairs, Tank would not go. He sat down and looked at her, then looked at the sink as to say "Hey dummy, you forgot to turn it off!" Lol he's so smart!
I see the intelligence of my German Shepherd (and other smarter breeds of dog) to be similar the intelligence of an average 1 year old child, as far as language, social ability, etc. They have a large sound recognition "vocabulary" to objects/actions, but they don't grasp concepts behind them. They learn tasks like a toddler, thru repetition and praise, and they learn best by watching other family members interacting with the environment.
I think some dogs (even other animals) can understand alot. When Dakota was a puppy he understood what " Go to the basement" meant. We never actively taught him it. We told him it once and he did it.. we were shocked. Ditto knows that I am mom and my mom is grandma. If I ask her where grandma is she will look out the window to see if she is here. I think this is just from us using those words to describe each other to the dogs. Dakota also knows these. Im not sure if they know my brother and sisters names. They of course know walk, potty, outside, ball.
I didn't read this entire thread however just came on and saw it at the perfect time. Jinx is driving me insane and I told her if she kept it up she was going down for a nap and the went over and closed her crate door and walked away... think that was a protest? lmao.
Months after my dog Tyler died, I asked Morgan (GSD), "Where's Tyler?"
Morgan looked at me, then purposefully turned away, ran out into the yard and came back with a VERY old favorite toy of Tyler's that I hadn't seen in years. I hadn't seen the toy for a much longer period of time than the period of time Ty had been gone.
I was trying to take some cute pictures of him to send to his breeder. So I told him "up". I wanted him to go up onto the chair, but he looked at me and jumped up ONTO the computer desk, legs braced, claws arched, and with a look in his eye of OK THIS IS SCARY, BUT WHAT NOW?!! He was towering over both speakers, the printer, and the monitor. I had my camera but of course had both arms out in the air yelling STAY! Because the monitor was about to fall onto the floor!! I have never taught him the "up" command, since I am trying very hard to keep him "down" since he gets over excited at times! So it was pretty funny that he actually did it right away. He may have gone "up" onto the wrong thing, but he definately knew what I was saying!
I agree that the dogs read our body cues first and foremost...and that they put 2+2 together with familiar words. The more I repeat words/actions, it becomes part of their vocabulary. One word commands and hand signals are obvious. But, the more we repeat phrases or whole sentences, they understand those as well. I love conversing with my 3.
It depends on how much you repeat that word and spend time with them, becuase my german shepherd puppy isn't a year old and already knows 9 tricks we repeat it a lot so she will know what the word means.
I think it's more like, they rely more on body language and certain gestures to communicate with other dogs and so they are more focused on that with humans. I've accidentally said a wrong command but she did the right command anyways.
Where as, we humans are more in tune with sight & speech for communication.
It's amazing what they learn without us teaching them. Bunny and Jazz know the obvious phrase, "Do you want to go for a walk" but I didn't anticipate them learning phrases my husband and I exchange between us in conversation like, "Can you take them out?"
The one command I like the most was also taught by accident. When my husband would walk them he would always say to them, "O.k., were heading back now" and then turn around and head back. He wasn't trying to teach them anything but they learned the command and now when we say it they sprint in the return direction. It comes in handy if they're at a distance and we want to head back. I could shout "come" but for whatever reason "were heading back now" excites them and they run back as fast as they can.
Personally, I think not only does Jax understand me but I think she's psychic half the time as well.
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
German Shepherds Forum
2.6M posts
121.9K members
Since 2002
A forum community dedicated to all German Shepherd owners and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about bloodlines, training, breeding, service dogs, and more!