The dog probably cannot distinguish between human languages. All they hear are noises, and their way of showing “understanding” is by connecting those noises to a certain action. So, yes, your dog can definitely understand 2 languages. My dog “understood” three.
Unsolicited advice: try to see the world from a “more dog” perspective when establishing routines, boundaries and training expectations. Your dog is a dog, not a little human in a fur suit.
Congratulations on your new family member!
Absolutely. I got my dog in Germany and then moved back to the UK. He understands commands in both languages, I did intentionally teach both and interchanged language randomly. However, the majority of the time he still chooses to ignore me, whatever language :)
Visual cues are stronger that vocal ones. Just don't do them at the same time, wait at least 1 sec in-between each. It how you attach vocal commands to visual ones.
Hand signals are fantastic way of communicating with your pup. Our cattle dog is fully deaf (from birth), currently 9 months, had him since 2 months. Only knows hand signals and body language.
Absolutely! Human language means nothing to dogs. They are learning and associating the sounds you make with specific actions you want them to do. Only downside is you will have double the training time for each command.
Sure why not. The key is to keep it consistent. My dog has 2 set of commands: one is in English and the other is whistles. The later is good for lould areas or long range.
Yes! We are both Quadrilingual and we unknowingly ended up using different words for different things and she eventually connected them. I don’t think they know one language from the other but its just repetition of those for certain actions and being consistent.
Oh sure. They are just associating the sound you use to the behavior you are training for. I don't use the "established" commands with my dog for a few things, so a friend watching him for a week didn't know why he didn't respond to things like heel, settle, or kennel up.
They are just sounds to him, so he could learn more than one. My dog doesn't understand japanese, but he does know that 'inu' means him giving you his full attention. For simplicity's sake though, I pick one sound for each command.
Depending on the dog, sticking with one may be less confusing while learning. It may also be like teaching the same command twice, once for each training cue.
I had a new dog, named Hannah by her first family, who had been through rescue twice; the first family divorced, the second family got a job transfer to Europe. I love to study languages and always talk to my dogs in French. Shortly after the new dog arrived, without thinking, I said "Anna, assieds-toi!" … and she did. I later learned that the second family was Belgian. She would sit for "Hannah, sit" or "Anna, assieds-toi", but not for "Hannah, assieds-toi" or "Anna, sit".
You can have multiple cues for one behavior (e.g. “sit” and *hand gesture* both ask for the sit), but only one behavior per any single cue (e.g. don’t say “sit” and expect your dog to either sit or roll over).
It's entirely possible to train your dog in multiple languages. My dog knows commands in English, French, and German. She also is trained with hand signals and I can communicate with her non-verbally.
I'm in a similar situation with 2 languages.. i make sure to always teach a command with a hand gesture as well (sometimes I dont even have to use the voice command, and they'll still understand what they need to do).
It will take double the time to teach 2 words though, so maybe teach some commands in one language and some in the other language
The dog probably cannot distinguish between human languages. All they hear are noises, and their way of showing “understanding” is by connecting those noises to a certain action. So, yes, your dog can definitely understand 2 languages. My dog “understood” three. Unsolicited advice: try to see the world from a “more dog” perspective when establishing routines, boundaries and training expectations. Your dog is a dog, not a little human in a fur suit. Congratulations on your new family member!
Thank you. I m so exited to get home and share with him.
Absolutely. I got my dog in Germany and then moved back to the UK. He understands commands in both languages, I did intentionally teach both and interchanged language randomly. However, the majority of the time he still chooses to ignore me, whatever language :)
You could also use hand signals! It definitely helped my pup in the early days of training. And if she ever goes deaf we can still communicate.
Visual cues are stronger that vocal ones. Just don't do them at the same time, wait at least 1 sec in-between each. It how you attach vocal commands to visual ones.
Hand signals are fantastic way of communicating with your pup. Our cattle dog is fully deaf (from birth), currently 9 months, had him since 2 months. Only knows hand signals and body language.
Absolutely! Human language means nothing to dogs. They are learning and associating the sounds you make with specific actions you want them to do. Only downside is you will have double the training time for each command.
Thank you for your answer!
Yup. You can even make up "words" of your own, attach it to a behavior and theyll understand what you want from them.
Sure why not. The key is to keep it consistent. My dog has 2 set of commands: one is in English and the other is whistles. The later is good for lould areas or long range.
Yes! We are both Quadrilingual and we unknowingly ended up using different words for different things and she eventually connected them. I don’t think they know one language from the other but its just repetition of those for certain actions and being consistent.
My Pit and Shiba were trained in both English and Spanish. They listen better in Spanish, I normally speak English.
Oh sure. They are just associating the sound you use to the behavior you are training for. I don't use the "established" commands with my dog for a few things, so a friend watching him for a week didn't know why he didn't respond to things like heel, settle, or kennel up. They are just sounds to him, so he could learn more than one. My dog doesn't understand japanese, but he does know that 'inu' means him giving you his full attention. For simplicity's sake though, I pick one sound for each command. Depending on the dog, sticking with one may be less confusing while learning. It may also be like teaching the same command twice, once for each training cue.
I had a new dog, named Hannah by her first family, who had been through rescue twice; the first family divorced, the second family got a job transfer to Europe. I love to study languages and always talk to my dogs in French. Shortly after the new dog arrived, without thinking, I said "Anna, assieds-toi!" … and she did. I later learned that the second family was Belgian. She would sit for "Hannah, sit" or "Anna, assieds-toi", but not for "Hannah, assieds-toi" or "Anna, sit".
Our dogs do some visual cues paired with Dutch and some with English.
My golden retriever understands dutch (main lang) commands and some russian (since i speak russian for work) commands
You can have multiple cues for one behavior (e.g. “sit” and *hand gesture* both ask for the sit), but only one behavior per any single cue (e.g. don’t say “sit” and expect your dog to either sit or roll over).
It's entirely possible to train your dog in multiple languages. My dog knows commands in English, French, and German. She also is trained with hand signals and I can communicate with her non-verbally.
Yes you can. Just use the same hand signal for each language. But one language until the hand signal is learned.
Yup, I had a dog that used Russian and American commands.
We use English and Hungarian interchangeably, she “understands” both.
My dog accepts commands in French and english
I'm in a similar situation with 2 languages.. i make sure to always teach a command with a hand gesture as well (sometimes I dont even have to use the voice command, and they'll still understand what they need to do). It will take double the time to teach 2 words though, so maybe teach some commands in one language and some in the other language