Canine ESL: How To Talk To Your Dog
In a sense, when we’re talking to our dogs, we’re teaching them ESL — English (or Spanish or Japanese) as a Second Language. photo: AdobeStock
I'm sure we all talk to our dogs. But the question is, "How much do our dogs understand?”
When we teach and test for comprehension and motivation, dog training works on a higher level. Read on for the dog-friendly, people-friendly, quick-and-easy, highly effective, results-based way to teach dogs English as a Second Language.
Communicating With Dogs
With domestic animals, when our relationship with them is paramount, teaching cued responses should be our primary goal. That means teaching dogs the meaning of the words we use. In a sense, we’re teaching them ESL — English (or Spanish or Japanese) as a Second Language.
Yes, we could communicate with dogs using any of their languages. For example, we could wiggle our ears to instruct them to sit, flex our elbows when we’d like them to play, or pee on a fire hydrant when we want them to 'go sniff.’ While all that’s certainly possible, it would be inconvenient, challenging, silly, and potentially embarrassing. Instead, it's just so much easier to teach dogs to understand words from our own language.
As a behaviorist who had the luxury of researching the development of dog social behavior and aggression for over 10 years, I learned to representatively observe and objectively quantify behavior, and I've always approached dog training with the same mindset. We all have subjective views of our dog's thoughts, feelings, emotions, and motives. Sometimes we are right; many times we are not.
In fact, we have no more solid proof of what a dog is thinking than we do of what our partner, child, or best friend is thinking. Thoughts are unseen and so presumed. However, behavior is observable and therefore, quantifiable. Woof, woof, woof — the dog barked three times. Irrefutable fact.
Lure-and-Reward Training Opens the Door to Better Communication
Lure-and-reward training is absolutely the easiest, quickest, and most effective technique to teach your dog the meaning of your words. This opens communication channels to facilitate teaching basic manners, such as Come, Sit, Down, Stay, as well as more advanced commands like Rollover-Stay, Shush, Beg, Bow, Backup, High Five, Settle, Heel, Hustle, and many more.
In fact, when it comes to effectively resolving the most common misbehaviors or non-compliance, verbal guidance is in a league of its own and an excellent non-aversive tool. That’s because aversive techniques only inhibit unwanted behavior but do little to instruct dogs how we would like them to act. Verbal cues communicate what we actually want to see them do and help get them back on track.
Training Cued Responses
Dog training is about changing an animal's perceptions and, hence, their behavior toward people and other dogs. To do that, we use classical conditioning and operant reward-training principles to reinforce and increase the frequency of desirable behavior, which progressively squeezes out undesirable behavior. Both processes may be accelerated by putting desired behaviors (and sometimes undesired behaviors) on verbal cues.
The Basic Training Sequence for teaching cued responses combines the associative learning aspects of classical conditioning with some very basic operant reward-training principles, which we call lure-and-reward training. While that may sound complicated, it’s really as simple as 1-2-3-4:
Request the desired action with your verbal cue.
Lure the dog into the action using a food treat. For example, if you want your dog to sit, move the treat up and slightly over their head.
Wait until they respond - in this case, when their hindquarters fall to the ground.
Praise and maybe reward your dog with the treat so they know they’re doing what you wanted.
Repeat this sequence several times until your dog gets the idea. Once your dog is reliably responding to your verbal cue and following the lure, continue the verbal cue and hand motion without any food in your hand. Be sure to PRAISE and maybe reward them with a treat after exceptional responses.
Quantifying Results While Training
It’s easy to quantify response-reliability percentages of cued responses every step of the way to let you know how your dog is progressing. For example, you can track a dog’s response when initially luring and then phasing out food in the hand during the very first training session, when using hand signals only, or ultimately, when using verbal cues only. Ongoing quantification allows the trainer to accurately monitor progress by providing absolute proof of training and proof of the speed of training.
As a simple test of the basics (Sit, Down, and Stand), you would score three repetitions of a Sit-Down-Sit-Stand-Down-Stand position-change sequence, off-leash and using verbal cues only. The Response-Reliability percentage for each of the six different position changes would be the number of responses (in this case three), divided by total number of verbal cues in all three repetitions, multiplied by 100.
The Response-Reliability percentage (RR%) represents a single precise index of the dog's comprehension of our verbal instructions plus their motivation to respond in each specific scenario. You'll find RR%s vary greatly depending on the handler, location, distance, and distractions, providing valuable information as to the likelihood your dog will respond promptly following a single verbal cue in a variety of settings: on the sidewalk, off-leash in parks, or stepping into a trial or show ring.
Quantification proves that simple and obvious verbal guidance is easier, quicker, much more effective, and considerably more dog-friendly and people-friendly than aversive techniques. Even a single, calmly spoken, comprehended word can be effective (think Sit, Settle, Shush).
As you train, always remember that communication is the key to any good relationship. Once your dog understands a few basic verbal cues, you’ll both be on the path to better behavior and a happier life together.