As dog lovers, we naturally take a great deal of pride in our dogs, often telling anyone who is prepared to listen just how clever (amongst other things) our four legged friends are.  How often do you hear, "he/she understands every word I say".  We are all guilty of humanising our dogs; (I know I am) to the point where our dogs should in human terms all have a Degree in languages or anything else for that matter.  By showing everyone just how clever our dogs are it somehow becomes a reflection of our own intelligence.

We take it for granted that when we utter a command our dogs instantly carry it out but how many of us understand the mental processes going on, what really happens when we ask our dogs to carry out a command and just how difficult it is for a dog to learn our language. 

The sit command for example, a simple command and invariably the first command we teach our dogs. We manage to get our dogs responding to this command successfully for a few times and then assume that our dog now knows what this command means. Not so.  It's us 'humanising' our dogs again because we as humans learn relatively quickly, we can communicate verbally and we are able to think 'outside of the box'.  Generally, we only need to be told once or twice or to go through an exercise once or twice before we can draw a general conclusion: 'Oh, I've got it now'.

Dogs however learn in an entirely different way. Words do have a meaning to them  but not the way they have meaning for us. A puppy for instance will be alert and attentive to our tone of voice because he knows that intonation conveys some kind of  information. However, unlike us, he does not have an area in his brain to process and understand speech though he will know that 'sounds' such as words exists. Now this is the hard part for our dogs.  Before a dog can carry out what is being asked of him he has to first figure out that one particular sound we make means something different from the other sounds we make. In fact, he has to work out that our sounds (as opposed to the tone of our voices) have any meaning at all.  Even when he's realised all this, he still has to break down the verbal structure of the sound made and then associate an action to that word.  Not an easy task even for us.

However, with a lot of repetition on our part and a lot of effort on his part he can learn to recognise a number of our words. Let's say he's learned that when you look straight at him and say a word, he knows you want him to do something though at this point he has no idea what you want him to do.  If you are using positive or reward based training then he won't be afraid to try out various things such as coming over to you, nose-nudging your hand, tapping you with a paw, barking. First he'll try out the actions you have rewarded in the past then if that fails, he'll try out others.

For example, how many of us, filled with success at being able to get our dog to follow our command at will and wanting to 'show off' our training abilities to anyone and everyone we know have asked our dog to sit only for him to go into a down?  We become slightly embarrassed because we have failed to get our dog to do what we ask but pass it off with a comment such as 'well that's better than nothing' or 'he does that as well'.  What we don't do is give any thought to the confusion that our dog is actually feeling, not fully understanding what we are asking of him but willing to 'give it a go' simply to please.  

So at this point in his learning curve he's simply guessing.  He knows this is a game and that if he guesses right he will get his reward.  This is when we are at risk of thinking, 'Okay, now he knows this command' but in reality, the dog didn't understand the word you said, because it was still new to him.

He does not hear this word as a recognisable sound as yet but he does know that you looked at him and made a sound; he knew you wanted something and so he guessed.  No matter how clever we think our dogs are, he just isn't capable yet of associating an action with a command even though he got lucky and guessed right once. It takes a dog many successful attempts to draw a general conclusion about anything at all. All he knows is that it was the right guess this time.  The next time you give the command, he'll start guessing all over again and the next time, and the time after that.  After many successful practices he may be able to consistently recognise the

word you are using and to associate it to some specific action that is asked of him.

So now you have managed to teach your dog to sit in the living room for instance but what happens when you ask him to sit someplace else?  As soon as you use this word somewhere other than the living room, the whole process of guessing starts all over again.  Your dog may, for example, have concluded that when asked to 'sit' in the living room it means he should put his backside on the carpet. Or he may have concluded that it means he should put his bottom on the floor next to the couch because afterall, that is where you normally sit. 

But now you're outdoors in the garden and he doesn't see or feel a carpet beneath his feet, he doesn't see a couch anywhere either. He doesn't yet know that 'sit' now means he should put his bottom on the grass.  To him, the word is not yet meaningful without all the familiar props of the situation he did his first learning in.  So he goes back to guessing, trying out all kinds of actions you have rewarded in the past, including and eventually putting his backside on the ground. After lots of practice it eventually dawns on him that 'sit' means the same thing in the garden as it does in the living room.

So now we take him out for a walk and guess what, the whole process starts all over again because it is yet another different surface, a different environment.  And so it goes on. After you've practiced with him in lots of different places, after literally

hundreds of successful attempts, a dog will eventually associate the word sit with an action as being the same thing everywhere and under all conditions.  An action that he's supposed to perform no matter what other stimuli is around, no matter what surface he's standing on and no matter which other behavioural choices are open to him in all these various places.  Only then is the dog 'bomb proofed' to that particular command.  The same also goes for every new command we teach our dogs.

A word of warning here.  If you conclude too quickly that he already knows a command and then punish him for not obeying, you will most definitely be slowing  down the learning process. The less 'free' your dog feels to guess, the less quickly he'll discover what action you want him to do, and the longer it'll take him to learn what the command means.

Always remember, dogs learn differently to humans. Just because it can take hundreds of times to get the response you ask for doesn't make the dog 'thick' or 'slow' (bless him).  Dogs, just like us, learn at different speeds.  You are the teacher, he is the pupil and his success is your success.  It therefore follows that his failure is your failure after all, how long would it take you to learn a foreign language?  And as for the Degree....given the physical limitations and difficulties dogs have understanding us, they all deserve one.