Posts Tagged ‘dog communication’

One of the biggest mistakes many dog owners make is to limit their dog's communication vocabulary. Once the dog has learned basic commands which cover no more than about a dozen words, they stop the training.

This is far below a dog's capabilities. Some owners report that their dogs understand 100, 250, and even 800 words. One dog, who happens to be deaf, knows 43 words of American sign language.

Imagine the benefits of having a dog with such a vast vocabulary. The more a dog knows, the fewer communication barriers will exist between you. The possibilities are endless. Read the rest of this entry »

You've probably realized that your human - dog communication skills can have a drastic impact on your relationship. One of the problems with this relationship is that learning to communicate is usually a one-way street. Many of us do everything in our power to get our dogs to understand and obey us yet we ignore our own training.

In other words, we expect our dogs to learn our language but we neglect to learn theirs. It is time to take a look at dog communications from his perspective. Read the rest of this entry »

One way dogs have of communicating is to growl. A dog's growling is not always a bad thing. Some dogs that tend to be rather vocal, will growl when they need to go outside, or they may have a guttural growl when they are trying to tell you they are hungry.

These types of growls are very different from a dog who growls to tell you to back off his space, his food, his toy. These incidents of growling need to be dealt with immediately. This type of growling is your dog's way of telling you that he believes he is the boss and that it is HIS toy, HIS bed, HIS food. This is a dominant dog. This will escalate into something more harmful if you do not address this immediately. Read the rest of this entry »

Why should dog communication concern you? Surely, teaching your pet a few necessary commands to get by is enough.

While it is true that you can manage if you teach your dog the basic commands such as sit, stay, down, come, and heel, you will be missing a lot if you do not take it to the next level. It depends on what you want to accomplish and what kind of relationship you want to establish with your dog.

Dog communication relies more on body language than on oral sounds. That's because they need a means to send a message to other dogs from great distances. In your world, that would be dogs across the street or in a neighbour's backyard. From a distance, a dog can easily see if the other dog is planning to challenge them or make friends simply by how they look at one another. Read the rest of this entry »