Here’s one small aspect related to the question of how dogs interpret our cues:
I started listing the cues that Will responds to, asking myself if he saw them as verbs or nouns (good point by one of the readers that humans can use one word for both, as in “snow.”) I didn’t get very far before things got interesting. Remember that game that Ian Dunbar used to do in working seminars? Testing out what cues really mean to your dog?
It came to mind when I started working with Will, and I asked him to Sit when he was already sitting. He immediately lay down. Of course, you can teach through this, but I never have because I haven’t needed to. So right there…. Will and I have not defined sit the same way. I think Will defines it as an action similar to: “Go down toward the ground,” while I’ve defined it as a posture. Right there we have a big difference in perceptions.
Lie down: When I asked him to Lie Down while already doing so, he flipped his hips and began to lay down on his side. Again, it looks like he defines it as an action (“go down farther toward the ground!”), while I tend to think of it as a posture.
Here’s another one to think about: What does “Stay” mean to your dog? My speculation is that dogs are extremely sensitive to ‘place,’ and that stay does not mean “don’t move your body,” it means “remain in the exact point in space.” I’ve come to define it that way too. If I tell my dog to Sit and Stay and he lays down, I’m perfectly happy because his behavior suggests that he has accepted that he’s not going anywhere and is choosing to get comfortable. Of course, if I competed in obedience that would be a problem, but I don’t so it doesn’t bother me. (Although I have to admit that I wish dogs weren’t asked to do long Sit/Stays.. it’s just not a comfortable or natural position for many dogs.)
Right now Will and I are working on using one hand signal for “High Five” and another for “Touch” (with your nose). He is struggling, because he anticipates so much… the second I move my hand he throws out a paw for a High Five, even if it’s his “Touch” signal. I can’t use separate hands because I’ve taught him to High Five with both fore legs, depending on which hand I hold up. Like so many highly visual dogs, he is so reactive to movement that sometimes it makes things harder rather than easier. I’m putting both High Five and Touch on verbal cues and we’ll see if that makes it easier for him. (I’m also going to tape my visual signals and see if something I am doing is making it harder. Moving my hand to the right 1/4 of an inch each time without knowing it? Could be…..)
Meanwhile, back on the farm: another 6 inches of snow or so. Nothing note worthy compared to some of the country, but pretty enough and thick enough to wear out me, Will and the sheep when we did some herding up the hill. Boy that warm bath is going to feel good!
Here’s Dorothy, impatiently waiting for me to put the &*^%$* camera away and get out her hay.
And because I am starved for color, here’s a Little Blue Heron from my trip to Florida in January. (This is one chilly bird, by the way, it was cold and rainy and the bird has one foot up to warm it and his/her feathers fluffed to capture air for more warmth. Seemed appropriate for this snowy day in Wisconsin!)
Mim Golub Scalin says
My dog is now deaf. I still talk to him, as if he could hear. It’s interesting with his hearing loss, he pays more attention to my hand signals. I point to the ground with my index finger and he comes to me. A flat hand down and he’ll lie down, if his joints aren’t hurting too much. He watches me so closely now in general. Thanks for the picture of Dorothy!
Kim says
Dorothy looks like she’s ready for spring…..
beautiful chilly bird!
D.K. Wall and The Thundering Herd says
And walk apparently means dance around like a maniac. Just saying.
Mindy Schroder says
I’m just starting to train my Standard Poodle puppy who is 11 months old. I just got him at 10 months old and he had only been at the breeders and didn’t even know his name. Sooo, we’ve been working on his name first. I really enjoyed watching the video you posted yesterday and Monday. I am truly fascinated by it! I can’t wait to see how many words Gentry can learn. My little dog, Angus knows many many words. I’m not sure how many but I did comment to my cousin that he seemed to understand human language more than he understands dog language. When we first got Gentry, Angus never seemed to understand what he was “talking” about. He would watch Gentry and then look at me as if to say “What?!” Talk about humanized!!
Mindy Schroder says
Oh! I forgot! Angus, the Shorkie, knows the words, “ball”, “bone”, “elephant” and “alligator”. When I would tell him to go get the bone, he would. I would tell him I wanted the ball and he would bring it to me. Also when we play fetch and he put the ball down far away from me, I tell him “I can’t reach it!” and he will pick it up and toss it to me. Just a few things he’s picked up =)
Ed says
Walk doesn’t mean dance around like a maniac?
My dog’s stay has just reached the point where I care at all about the posture. She knows what her chin is, and my trainer has taught her dogs to put their chins and their tails (her dogs have them) on the ground for a perfect stay. We’ll see how far we get.
Rebecca’s Feb 9 comment for the previous post made me think about dogs having a “close enough for government work” view. The dog Maddie will go find Cleo in most cases, but if there’s another cat handy, Maddie will sometimes find that cat. (If several cats are in the same area, Maddie will find Cleo – she does know who Cleo is.) Can’t help but think that Maddie does know she’s getting the “wrong” cat but maybe she thinks Rebecca is too picky about which cat she needs.
It’s often hard to work out when a dog doesn’t understand versus when a dog is trying to make you understand.
My dog has been trained to know objects by name, and to find objects by name. Right now, I’m
trying to teach her to target my toe with her nose (she’ll jump in the air or go underneath something to target my fingers) and I’m a little surprised by how slowly it goes. Possibly, she has the idea that if I’m sticking my foot out, I should be kicking a ball. To date, that’s the only time she’s seen me put my foot in the air.
Holly says
funny how what we say/mean is so different from what they think/hear.
Just like kids and spouses….oh wait…..
great pix of Dorothy!
Kat says
As always a very interesting topic. I teach a class to 4th-8th graders about dogs. I’ve also done dog courses for K-3rd graders. My general philosophy in these classes is that more knowledge will result in better interactions between my students and their dogs. With the younger kids I try to get them to think of the dog as being more than just part of the furniture or landscaping; that their dog is a creature much like themselves. With the older kids I spend more time on differences between primate and canine ways of processing information. Your blog has been a fabulous resource and I can’t thank you enough! Today it was class with the older kids and I brought Ranger to class. They’ve moved my classroom and it was a little hard to persuade Ranger that we weren’t going to the room he’s used to. Once he saw that there were kids in the room we were going to he was more than happy to head in. One of the things we do when Ranger visits is to run through all of his tricks that I can think of (I’m going to have to start taking a list with me!) and then we allow the kids one at a time to come up and ask Ranger for a trick in exchange for a treat. It’s fascinating to watch the interaction as the kids try to communicate to him which trick they want. I’m pretty sure that he’s figured out that the kids don’t care which paw he uses when they ask for a shake or a high five. I expect high five to be with his left paw and shake with his right. I can’t say whether he’s looking at physical cues or listening for the verbal one but he seldom makes a mistake when I ask. With the kids he tends to use his paws ambidextrously for either command. They’re just trilled that he did something like what they asked for when they asked him. When he has no idea what they’re asking for he’ll run through his repertoire starting with whatever last got him a reward.
Something interesting related to stay happened today. I had Ranger on a sit stay while I talked to the kids about something. I had a treat in my hand held behind my back and my back to Ranger. I pointed out to the kids that even though there was a tasty tidbit in sight he was staying. Of course the instant I returned my attention to the kids (no doubt unconsciously twitching my fingers in such a way as to suggest to Ranger that it would be OK to leave his stay) he got up and headed for the treat. It got a great laugh from the kids which Ranger seemed to enjoy–at least his doggy grin got bigger. With Ranger I use wait meaning remain in this place until I tell you otherwise and stay meaning remain in this posture in this place until I say otherwise. Occasionally, I need him in a particular posture for a photo or similar which is what the stay is for. Mostly we use wait as it doesn’t matter what posture just that he remain in one place for a moment. Wait can be for a long period but stay is used only for a minute or two. I wouldn’t be surprised if he broke the stay but continued to wait if I left him for a long while.
When he comes back inside I’ll try telling him to sit when he’s already sitting and see what happens.
Kat says
We experimented with telling Ranger to sit and to crouch when he was already doing so. Ranger just looked puzzled. I thought it might just be that he listens to me more intently so I had my 10 year old son do the same exercise. Ranger would start to shift position and correct himself so that he remained sitting. We’ve trained Ranger that crouch is the direction to have all four limbs under him folded so that his belly is to the floor. Down means laying with forepaws outstretched and on one hip. Flat is laying entirely on one side. When my son asked Ranger for a crouch and once he was in that directed him again to crouch Ranger crawled a step then stopped. The second time he was directed to crouch when he already was he cocked his head to the side and looked puzzled. I think Ranger knows Sit as both the action of sitting and the position of sitting and knows crouch as both the act of crouching and the position of crouching.
Wild Dingo says
That’s really funny that you brought up asking to sit when already sitting. I just started working with a positive method trainer in Schutzhund for my GSD mix. She asked me the same question, what does your dog do when you ask him to do something he’s already doing? well, my GSD mix happened to be sitting next to me and i relayed her my story, “oh that’s funny, one day i accidentally told him to ‘sit! Sit! Sit!’ three times because i wasn’t really paying attention to him and didn’t know he was already seated….” Well, i didn’t even finish the story because as i told it and said “sit sit sit” three times, my GSD mix, picked up his butt and planted it down, three times in a row right in front of us as I told the story. Holy Cow! I wasn’t expecting that. Big praises and cookies for him! But yes, i do agree, it can be confusing for them if we leave them on a sit stay and walk away and they down and we accept it. I’m working on making the stay as prescise as possible and no commando crawling! that’s really hard to do when the dog is geared up to keep moving!
Frances says
Here in the North of England we are having a few gloriously sunny days – the snowdrops are out, primroses are in bud, and there are little green bulb spikes everywhere. More snow and sleet are forecast, but we are making the most of frosty, non-muddy fields and almost-warm sunshine to get out there and play!
I love the expression on Dorothy’s face!
S says
I like your comments about the stay – I’ve struggled with this recently as my dogs tend to shift position but as long as they aren’t making any forward motion, I’ve called it a success and then thought maybe I was being too easy on them and myself. This has come into play recently as well for the “wait” command – I’ve been working this at the door (they know it but we’ve gotten lax and I tend to realize this as I’m trying to herd 3 kids out the door and keep 2 large dogs in the house or when the school bus pulls up and the 2 dogs want to go greet their pals immediately) and just recently added wait to bfast/dinner. My dogs both sit for their food as part of their nothing in life is free routine, but they tend to dive into the bowl as soon as it hits the floor. So now I do a sit and wait, but one of my dogs was standing up although he was waiting – he wasn’t crowding the bowl at all. I was trying to get him to sit while waiting but it was causing him to really start hopping up and down in anticipation, so I’ve backed off and as long as he sits and then waits, even if his sit turns into a stand, I call it good and release him to eat. Now however I may need to figure out if this whole routine is causing one of them to bolt his food more or not – we’ll see…he may need a new slow feeder bowl or something to slow him down! Reading your experience with Will and the sit when already sitting and the down when already down makes me wonder if my dog when sitting hears “wait” and considers it an action and thus pops up, or if its just bc he wants that food and is thinking “come on woman, put it DOWN already”
Jane says
This is a really interesting topic; thank you for looking at the different aspects of understanding. I am now inspired to do more investigation with my dog Indy. I had never contemplated the intricacies of language and dogs. I do enjoy your blog having only found it in December.
Ute Hamann says
Whoever has the opportunity: Kayce Cover teaches something amazing. She teaches to talk constantly to the dogs but ins the sense of explaning them what is going on. She names bodyparts and the position(right/left shoulder, right/ left hind leg, arm and ear, back, nose) – the same to the instruments. She names the syringe and lets the dog sniff it, she names the bodypart the syringe will be applied, she will tell the dog in advance it is going to hurt. If the dog is not ready to accept the syringe she uses to show what is planned with the dog doing it to a huma. All the time explaining. I observed her working in a vet office with tremendous succes (a panicking dog with chronicle ear infections who accepted the treatment he was so afraid of within an hour). Next morning the dog showed even more self confidence and could accept the totoskope easily – the vet almost could not believe it.
My own dogs (we were in a workshop) changed their behaviour within these days: they seamed to listen to what I was talking – I had the impression they tried to catch words/information that had become a meaning. It was very relaxing for us owners,too – the first time we were allowed to talk constantly and explain the dogs what was going on: “This is the otoscope you are afraid of. this is my chest, this is your chest. Now I take the otoskope and touch my chest. Is it o.k that I take it and touch YOUR chest?” Then proceeding in circles towards the place you need. The dogs were fascinated… and were fascinating. Kayces own dogs distinguish between yes and no , too, and so she even can ask them questions with two options (yes/no). They have a so large vocabulary that you can find out pretty complex facts by asking (for example ask about someone who passed the house unseen by the dogowner).
It was so faszinating, so different to what I/we all had learned. My own dog who was on the workshop with me still distinguishes beween his left versus the right body parts, and is unusually open to learn new meanings, new vocabulary. I took over her system for vet visits and the dogs do much better (bad things happen, but no bad surprises anymore).
Ute
Victoria, Dream Dogz says
My German Shepherd, Jedi, and I are doing trick training now. She does Shake and Hi-Five and Wave Goodbye. Her cue for Wave Goodbye is me waving goodbye at her and looking at her feet. If I don’t look at her feet, she just sits there. It’s amazing how she picked up on the direction of my gaze! And the small amount of eye shifting from looking at her head to her feet!
Ignacio says
Interesting experiment! I tried this with our Lab/BC mutt, and got some similar results:
– I had a different reaction to the repeated “sit”. It seems that he indeed understands “sit” as “get in the sit position” because as I kept saying it he just moved half an inch and sat again, reaffirming the seating position. After the 3rd time he gave me a look of “can’t you SEE I’m sitting, you moron??” 🙂
– On the repeated “down”, however, he did exactly as Will. This one probably means “get closer to the ground”.
I think “stay” means exactly that to him: stay on that very spot until I tell you to.
Stephanie Boutwell says
My dog has the same reaction to High Five and Touch. His first reaction is to give me a high five when I put my hand out in the “touch” position. He reacts more to non verbal cues and I am trying to teach him touch with a distinct difference than the “high five” sign. He’s catching on, slowly.
Jennifer Hamilton says
My dog definetly thinks in verbs and has great difficulty differentiating nouns. She has an amazing portfolio of actions on command, but ask her to distinguish between one toy or another and she seems to select randomly…i.e. when I say “get the ball”, she perceives “get something, anything will do”. If I point to what I want, no problem…but that’s back to an action verb “get the thing I’m pointing to”. I have tried repeatedly to differentiate objects with her, but it just doesn’t come natural.
I wonder if some breeds are more inclined to think in verbs and others in objects. This might explain why some dogs are only obsessed with yellow tennis balls, and somehow a blue tennis ball or a yellow tennis football have almost no value. While other dogs put them all in the same category of “things to play with”.
As for the other point, I use
– left hand open, palm facing up = shake with left paw
– left hand open, palm facing forward = high five with left paw
– left hand closed into fist = touch fist with nose
and the same on the right side.
She seemed to differentiate between these hand signals very easily when done at her level (i.e. me sitting in front of her). It’s especially easy to start getintt a touch to the fist if there’s something smelly inside your hand. Luring, I know…but it certainly draws the nose to the hand very quickly.
Sabine says
This post reminds me of the HUGE light bulb that lit up my brain when at a seminar, Trisha talked about body posture of the handler and dogs reading into it and responding accordingly. My – no longer with us 🙁 – standard poodle Giaco is a prime example of how a dog reads body pasture. I used to do competitive obedience with him and every time I had to do the recall he wouldn’t come. I stood there like an idiot, whilst he was sitting on the other side of the obedience ring like someone had nailed him down there. Really embarrassing – for me !
When Trish explained how subtle a change of body pasture can be for the dog to notice, it all in a sudden dawned on me (THANKS, TRISH ! ! ! ) My body has been telling the poor guy to stay put (leaning ever so slightly forward during the recall command), whilst my vocal command was telling him something entirely different. :O Dogs are very visual creatures and respond to the subtlest cues. Since we are snowed in right now, I do play a lot of mind games with the dogs. One of them is the treat under a cup. My shepherd will ALWAYS go to the cup I send her to just using my eyes. Dogs are so smart and truly have adapted to be with us and even part of us. It’s something like a symbiosis between two species.
BTW – this doesn’t belong here, but I wanted to share anyways. Vintage home movies of the famous Sunnybank collies of Albert Payson Terhune and all other kinds of interesting information about the old farm collies, some of you may be interested in: http://www.oldtimefarmshepherd.org/
Alexandra says
I love that picture of Dorothy. Poor girl!
Copper knows high five and touch. I use a vertical hand, fingers together palm facing dog to cue high five. I use a horizontal hand, fingers together palm facing dog to cue touch. I use a hand with fingers spread, palm facing dog to cue stay. In my experience, Copper is very attuned to my hand signals and it makes things much easier for him if I am precise. My other dog, Izzy, is even more that way to the point where I don’t even bother with verbal commands as much because I don’t think she really pays much attention to them anyway.
Alexandra says
I forgot to add that I use a verbal cue for those tricks for Copper along with the hand signals. I had to add that to keep from getting pawed or nosed the second my hand starts to get in position.
Cynthia says
When a friend of mine comes over and I ask him to have my dogs run a few tricks to get treats, since they’re a bit shy, he always asks for a sit after they’re lying down. They have no idea what he wants. One rolls over, and one just stares blankly. I told him to say “hup” and that worked right away.
Pike says
This is why I so like the blogging format! I have been reading the previous two threads and nodded, wondered and laughed. I saw my old Portie Sparky in many of the descriptions and my hound dog Ronja in none.
Then comes Ute’s post and it touches on something that I had just started doing with Ronja to stop her from barking at other dogs while being in the car which she had started doing again when I returned from Europe. Talking and explaining in whole sentences as if talking to a person seems to go a long way with her and she hasn’t barked at any dog during the last three car rides.
Even better, Ronja also appears to be less inclined to do her mad on-leash yelling at other dogs during our walks when I talk to her about the passing dog(s). I was intrigued enough to order Kayce Cover’s booklet about the family dog.
Another regular beachcomber with a very difficult, loud, fearful and intense Poodle walked with us this morning and we marveled about how far our two “bad” dogs have come. There was no way that these two could have done a peaceful beach walk together even some months ago. Of course, we – the two-legged ones – scan the horizon incessantly to make sure that we see any approaching dogs, children, joggers, horses, etc. hopefully before the dogs do – but still within certain parameters they are safe to have off-leash fun. That’s huge and we credited all of our many dog friends, trainers, books, and – yes – blogs with these improvements.
While no one trainer or book had all the answers we – at least then – rather desperately searched for, they all had some pearls of wisdom to offer that over time increased our understanding and helped with our relationships with our fearful troublemakers. By now, we both have relaxed into trusting ourselves most with our dogs – while always being on the lookout for more helpful techniques or ideas.
And Trisha’s books, videos and seminar as well as this blog continuously have helped with this and I am thrilled to have been turned yet again towards another path to explore more.
Thank you Trisha and all bloggers. Amazing how you all have an impact on my ever improving communication with my four-legged friends.
Liz F. says
Thanks for the prompt addition to this subject, and for more interesting comments.
I love the pictures, amazing colors, and how the green ground cover resembles Dorothy
Pam Coblyn says
I worked on Fenway’s sit and down stays since he was having a little trouble settling down for the required time in novice obedience classes. It appeared that he was hyper-alert to all the movement, activity and noise around
cassie says
I never noticed before reading all of these threads that I talk constantly to all of my patients as I do my exams. It makes sense, actually. Those dogs would be a lot more freaked out by a person that is approaching them, touching all sorts of weird places, and being dangerously silent. I guess maybe talking makes me feel less threatening. Like the verbal version of a body wag to put them at ease.
When I lived alone during vet school my dogs learned a lot of language. It was just me and the dogs, and some days they were the only “people” I talked to. They learned many different words and phrases during that time and whenever people would come visit they would think my dogs were somehow extra smart. None of my dogs have ever really learned nouns versus actions, but I have enjoyed watching one of my dogs as he learns new concepts. Like realizing that he can step up on something as a new action when previously he never thought of it, and now he offers it up whenever we play shaping games.
And, speaking of shaping games- boy do those keep me honest about my body language. I have learned just how much talking I accidentally do with my body when I accidentally cue a behavior I didn’t know I was cueing. Hmmmm. I should eventually get better about that right? I had to give myself a “neutral” body position for shaping so my pup knows it is “game on” and time to toss out new stuff.
Thank goodness I have a dog that takes well to verbal cues even if the body language ones are so much louder to him. He’s learned to touch my hand when I say touch, even if my body language is screaming to him that he should high five it. He makes up for my flaws. (I would probably have less flaws if we had a real goal in mind, and not just training to stave off boredom. I’d be forced to fix my inconsistancies)
Kat says
I’m currently reading The Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson. It makes a very interesting juxtaposition to this discussion. Donaldson argues that language is meaningless to dogs that they just learn certain cues in order to achieve positive reinforcement. I’ve started to wonder if how dogs process to our verbal cues, their recognition of language (for want of a better way to describe it), is something we train or is something inherent in certain dogs. Is Ranger able to recognize some sound labels as objects because I’ve trained him that some sound patterns mean objects (I play touch various objects by name with him fairly often) or because something about his mental processes allow him to grasp abstractions that other dogs might not. Some humans can grasp complicated mathematics that others can’t. That seems to me to be much the same sort of thing. It’s fascinating to think about.
Monique says
Just a short note –
I’ve often chuckled at my sheepdog (BC) Lucy. If I ask her to “Lie down” she puts her elbows, chest and rear on the ground, sometimes rolled onto a hip, sometimes not. (Almost always on a hip in obedience, NEVER on a hip on stock) If she is already lying down and I ask again, “Lie down,” she puts her chin on the floor. If I ask a third time, she flattens her ears. I wonder what she is thinking?
If I ask my Aussie, Magick, to sit once she is already sitting, she will stand and then sit, or roll onto a hip and then square up again. If I ask her a third time, she barks at me!
As far as signals for shake, wave, touch, etc. I also use the finger orientation and spread vs. together to differentiate with all of my dogs. Some dogs are trialed in obedience, some in Rally, some not. All in agility, some in stockdog work as well.
Examples:
Touch: Palm toward dog, fingers together parallel to the floor and pointed away from my body. Either hand.
Shake: Palm up, fingers together and hand is like a cradle to accept paw. Opposite hand to the paw I want. (ie right hand-right paw, left hand-left paw when face to face so crossed like regular handshake)
High-Five: Palm toward dog, fingers open and pointing UP.
LONG Stay: (always leaving from heel position) Right hand only, palm toward dog reaching across my body, fingers together pointing to my left. When I leave, I fold grasp my left wrist in my right hand behind my back (dog can see both hands as I walk away) and when I turn to face the dog I always turn left, hands remain behind my back. Toes and heels together while I stand.
Stay for recall: (from heel) same signal but with FINGERS SPREAD. As I walk away, hands at my sides. When I’ve reached my location, turn to my left to face the dog, feet spread about 12″ apart.
Stay for Drop-on-recall: (From heel) same as stay for recall, except when I reach my target location, turn to my RIGHT and face the dog, feet about 12″ apart.
I love working in front of a mirror as I watch the dog behind me after the variety of stay cues. They are so *relaxed* when I leave for a long stay, and so animated when anticipating the recall or drop. Very fun stuff!
Fol says
I’ll have to wait until I’m at home with my babydog to try out the experiment, but this post reminded me of how sometimes it’s easier to change the cue to fit the dog.
When I first taught my puppy ‘down’, the visual cue was a fist hand shape. Without fail, she would gently bop it with her nose on the way to lying down, so I just ran with it, started using the first for a nose touch, and a different hand signal for down. Now she knows that a fist means touch, a hand held in a high-five posture means, well, high-five (different paws depending on which hand, the clever baby!) and a hand held palm up means shake paws (again, different paws for different hands).
No wonder she was confused when at the pet store the other day, a woman asked her to sit and held up her hand, which I guess she uses as a sit cue for her dogs. Sadie sat and then high-fived the woman, and when the woman just started repeating her SIIIIIIIT, SIIIIIIT, Sadie looked at me with a “Dude, are you seeing this crazy lady?” expression on her mug.
JJ says
I finally got to see the BBC video that started these posts. Like others, I truly enjoyed it. (Except for the parts near the end where the guy started talking about dogs being parasites. I don’t see how that makes any sense, and I thought it was a particular waste of space in a scientific-based show.)
Aside from enjoying the show, I left with minor frustrations/more questions on at least three areas that seem like competing concepts to me.
1) Dog Vs Wolf
The show makes a big point of saying that dogs are not wolves who have been raised domestically. There is a whole scene where people take 5 day old wolf cubs from their wild den and try to raise them like dog puppies. At some point, the wolves start acting like wild wolves. I felt that the scientists were making the point that while the DNA may show that dogs are descended from Gray Wolves, dogs are NOT wolves.
…..OK. But I thought I heard (and please forgive me if I misunderstood) Trisha say in one or more avenues that “dogs are wolves”. That dogs are so genetically like wolves, that scientists have reclassified dogs AS wolves.
Doesn’t this seem contradictory?
2) Dogs Interfering With Human Procreation
At one point in the video, someone says something along the lines that people who have dogs do so in place of having children. Elsewhere in the video, they say that our population would not be as big as it is today without dogs as our social partners. Hmmm.
……I think the first statement is absurd. I don’t think there is any scientific evidence for it, and it just doesn’t make any sense. So, again, it is a waste of space. But even if you buy the first sentence, the two ideas presented at different times (instead of compared and contrasted and debated) are contradictory. In other words, one of the things I found frustrating is that the video seems like it is presenting “the dog-human story as we know it” as a cohesive story, but then their story is full of contradictions that they do not acknowledge.
3) Well, I won’t go into this one. It’s more off topic.
Just thought I would share my thoughts on the video. I do remember that the video said that dog research is relatively new. That no doubt contributes to the video’s holes.
Stacey says
I have experienced the same problem with my JRT Penny being too eager to use her paws in response to a hand signal. In our case it was the difference between shake and touch, but when she was keyed up she would almost always throw her paws at my hands at the tiniest movements. Here’s our journey:
Penny would offer a nose touch to a closed hand reliably when calm. Penny would be very excited about using her paws when invited to shake, and it would ramp her up. Afterward, going back to the “touch” cues would result in her using her paws more aggressively, down to flexed claws to hold and scratch as if to say “look, look, don’t you feel this, I’m doing it, okay?” If I did not respond to her (as in, she was not doing what I asked, so no treat) she got really frustrated, she would just use both her paws to squeeze, or to dig and scratch at our hands and often would escalate to using her mouth to try to bite our hands open, something she NEVER did under any other circumstances.
This, understandably, was a problem. I told my husband he was no longer allowed to ask for touch or shake until I got it sorted out, so she was only receiving one set of (conflicting) cues. We would start with me sitting on the edge of the couch, so I could own my hand space with my body, which blocked her eager forward jump somewhat. Then, I went through a desensitization period when I simply held a treat in my loosely closed fist. She shook with one paw and two, she pushed, she dug, she mouthed, she bit, and if she was hurting me too badly, I would simply bring my hand back to my body and push her off, then return my hand once she backed off. I would reward her for any backward movement or any eye contact with my hand that did not involve her paws. She caught on quickly and she began to offer shake with one and then two paws and then she would look at my hand from above until she eventually would back off entirely you could just see the cogs turning. The any hand movement equals crazy-charge-shake business died pretty quick after that.
From there, we moved to a touch only regime for quite some time. She would often forget and try for a polite shake, but at this point, I would remove my hand from the game entirely and look away and turn my body away from her. This complete shutdown was always very effective. Eventually, I would make her move away from me a bit before she got the treat for touching, and so she would begin to dart in to touch, all the while respecting my space.
Eventually we were able to get to a point where she would touch, touch, touch, shake, touch, touch, touch without hesitation.
She still throws shakes at me when she is really riled up, but it is now the same as any other missed cue and she will watch my hand or my face very intently for the correct cue.
When I began to teach the above head double pawed high-five, I began to think the problem for us was that paw-centric activites are usually very bodily forward, while dogs are generally not going to whack us with their faces and keep pushing, outside of the attention seeking or warning behaviors. Even then, the dogs usually back off afterwards to watch the effect. If I taught body away behaviors as the correct lead up or follow through to the forward moving paw type behaviors, she got what I wanted much faster and much more accurately.
Ed says
Kat – I haven’t read the “The Culture Clash” by Jean Donaldson lately, but is she actually saying words are meaningless? I recall understanding that she wanted people – especially people who aren’t particularly doggy – to understand that you have to understand what our animals know and understand when you try to communicate with them, instead of expecting them to listen like English-speaking people in dog suits.
I think being able to learn hand signals/sounds/words is inherent in most dogs. And we pay a lot of attention to things we say and so naturally expect dogs to respond to certain words and notice when they don’t – while all day long we’re using our hands and bodies in ways that we don’t realize are meaningful, yet sometimes confusing, to our dogs. (For what it’s worth, if I am lunging my horse and reach up to scratch my nose or check my watch with the whip hand, she’ll stop. The second my whole body isn’t in the correct position to drive her forward, she hits the brakes.)
For sit when already sitting, my reactive girl just flips out when she doesn’t know what to do. To correct her position in a sit or a finish, I say, “Butt, butt, butt!” and she skooches (or hops) around until I confirm she’s correct. This is going to be a problem in a Rally ring, I fear.
Yvonne says
Thanks for the blogging! I found your aggressive dog DVD at out library it helped a lot with my foster doberman. We have been a fan ever since! Now that my husband and I are looking into opening a goat dairy I am back on the hunt for guardian info look who turned up in my scope again! I was just telling a friend of mine with a new puppy to look you up because of your down to earth approach! Keep up the good work!
Traci says
I tried the “asking for a sit while dog is sitting” experiment today. Interesting! Sophie ( lab )offfered “down”, not a surprise. Harry (boxer) cocked his head, went halfway to “down”, pushed back up to “sit” and re-evaluated. He kept sitting and snorted at me! I asked for “sit” again. He gave a huge snort, got up and walked away! He must think I have lost my mind.
Both dogs know hand signals as well as verbal commands. They have sorted out the hand signals for “paw”/”shake”, “high five” and “touch it”(with your nose), although they look quite similar to other humans.
Cheryl Jones says
My lab/springer mix puppy originally thought that the sit command meant the sit position. When I told her to sit, she would sit down, but then would drag herself around on her butt while staying in the sit position. It was so funny I didn’t teach her to stay in the same place while sitting for at least a week….
She also knew the names of most of her toys — like ball, bone, and mouse, and would pick up the correct toy when told to. She knew the name of about 6-7 people, and if you handed her an object like a newspaper and told her to take it to a person (take it to Susan), she would take it to the correct person. A couple of times we played a game at a party where we had her take different objects to different people at the party, and she was very accurate. If the object was food, however, it never actually made it to the person, the would eat it in route (not that you’d want it back anyway). She also knew things like “back seat” in the car, and “down stairs”. I tried down stairs when in the bedroom of a friends house, and she immediately left the room, went to the stairs (which shee had only seen once), and then went down them.
The most interesting command I ever gave her was when we were playing with my sister-in-law’s new puppy in a large fenced field. The puppy just wouldn’t come, and we just couldn’t get near it. It was very fast. Finally, I brought my dog over and told her to “Fetch puppy”. She angled her head to what I think of as the confused or thoughtful position and just stared at me. She knew the word fetch and knew that puppy meant that other dog but she didn’t know what the two words together meant. She thought about it for a minute, and I tried giving the command again, and her face lit up and she turned around and ran toward the puppy. She then herded the puppy directly back to us, and we grabbed it. A few years later when we got our own puppy, that command was really useful.
Unfortunately, she is no longer with us, so I can’t try the sit command while she is sitting.
Trisha says
I wanted to add a comment about JJ’s good point that it seems contradictory to acknowledge that “dogs are wolves” (genetically) and then make the point in the documentary that “dogs aren’t wolves.” It IS contradictory, except, well, it’s true. Dogs are so close genetically to wolves that they are biologically classified as the same species. It doesn’t mean that their genetic blueprint is exactly the same, but that they share so many genes that not only can a dog and a wolf reproduce successfully, their young are also reproductively viable. (That’s the key to a species… you do see hybrids of 2 species–horses and donkeys create mules for example–but the young are not able to reproduce themselves.)
So dogs and wolves are close enough genetically to be classified as the same species, BUT… the small differences in their genetics create larger differences in their behavior. I would never classify myself as a wolf expert, but I’ve worked with several wolf/dog crosses and been with 100% wolves, and I can tell you that they are profoundly different. (Wolves are far more neophobic, obsessed with hierarchy and do not look to humans to help them solve problems.) One of the worst bites I ever had was from a 75% wolf puppy who disciplined me for touching his bone (after I had traded it for something better) with a hard, yellow-eyed stare and by sinking his teeth, as far as they would go, into my hand. I’m NOT saying all wolf dog crosses are aggressive, they are not, but boy, wolves are not dogs. But try telling that to a female wolf in heat who runs into an intact GSD!
JJ says
Trisha: Thanks so much for the added explanation. I have rule about not typing a post when I’m in a hurry. But then, I was in a hurry with that post… It sounded more critical than I intended. I was honestly looking to resolve that point of confusion in my head. Your explanation was really helpful.
Understanding the distinction makes the thoughts race in my head.
Lori says
My dog Roxy will ‘down’ if I tell her to ‘sit’ while she is sitting – I wonder how much of it is that they use trial and error as a strategy – knowing you want something and trying to do things until you praise….so in the dog mind, they must not be doing it right if you are still asking for it, and they try some other things….
Lori says
Another interesting thought regarding how dogs process words…. while I use both verbal and gestural cues for every command (and Roxy will respond to either seperately) if I give the verbal ‘sit’ command and at the same time use the hand ‘down’ command – she will down.
Roxy doesn’t know the words for her toys, which I’ve tried to teach her, but if I am anywhere in the house and yell “Bunny Rabbit” she races to the back window and stares at the bush where she twice caught a bunny. She does the same with “Squirrel”, except that she stares intently at the tree where the squirrel lives. I never taught her either of those things intentionally, she just picked it up by my saying – “Yes, you found a squirrel…..” on random occasions and, “You got a bunny rabbit! No, dead bunny rabbits can’t come in the house. Take your bunny outside.” lol But she definitely distinguishes between the two words and where the two creatures live.
Lori says
I do wonder about breed differences….If I told my hound dog to sit while sitting, he would just stare at me. Then, rather than exert the mental energy required to figure out words, he’d just look at the other dogs to see what they were doing. I joke that he’d be lost without a dog interpreter! 🙂
Lori says
When I was a linguistics student in college, I did a project on the roles of form vs. function in (human) semantic memory. There is quite a bit written on it, but basically, we usually store memories (and meanings) of objects based more on their function as an object, rather than their form. For example, the concept of
Amy says
Love the pictures, especially all that snow piled up on the sheep. That’s a beautiful bird, although I think it is a Tricolored Heron and not a Little Blue (note his white belly). I am hoping to travel to Florida for spring break and am looking forward to the abundance and variety of wading birds!
Jala Pfaff says
Giving the command (for instance) “sit” when the dog is already sitting frequently leads to the dog then lying down…etc. I believe that what may be going on in the dog’s mind is that it knows what the command means, but notices that you are not “satisfied,” and so it goes on to try other things (e.g., lie down, high five, etc.) to see if one of them is to your liking.