Talk to your dog

How many times have you heard someone say – ‘if only he could talk…’    But your dog can talk and understand most of what we say too.   Having ongoing conversations with your dog is an essential part of solving behavioural issues and helping him to be a happy pet.

Most of how the dog communicates with us is by body language.   Dog to dog is subtle and the slightest flick of an ear, wriggle of the body of flex of the tail, means a whole lot to another canine.   Dogs ‘sign’ to us when they want to say something.  ‘come on, you guys, let me out’ when he goes to the door.   ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to knock that dish over,’ when he knows he’s done wrong.    ‘Throw the ball please,’ when he wants to play.  It’s all pretty easy stuff for us humans to understand.    It’s my belief that dogs understand much more of what we say.  It might be our tone of voice, our body language when we say something or the words themselves.  

Dogs definitely understand simple words but they can quite easily be taught much more of our language.  Words and actions, repeated over again and most dogs get the idea.   Some dogs are brilliant and learn very quickly, others take a while.   But it’s important not to make this a command session – too much training and the dog not only gets bored but begins to lose his personality.  A dog is a separate species and not a human plaything, although sadly, that is what they are to many people.   Just having a chat to your dog while you’re out for a walk for example, or even when you’re indoors, is a great way to interact with your pet and bond with him.   It doesn’t have to be anything very profound, whatever is on your mind at the time, dogs are pretty good listeners.