Teaching Our Dog ESL

Did you know our dogs aren't born knowing English? Seems pretty obvious right? Though time and again, I hear owners harping on their 8 week old puppies to sit, sit, sit, SIT. We are their teachers and need to teach our dogs what we want when we say "Sit" or "Come here" or whatever may be your primary speaking language. We have the tendency to repeat ourselves and get louder the longer we go without results. If I asked something of you in Spanish, and you only understand English, and I continued to get louder and angrier it isn't going to increase the chance that you are going to do what I am asking. So if I continually tell you to come here in Spanish, and since you dont' understand me you look at me quizzically, I repeat myself, and then a bit louder, I now am no longer a friendly person but a bit scary and you aren't going to come to me


Um...I don't understand you. You want me to do what?

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Using positive reinforcement, we can grab a yummy treat, lure the dog in to the sit position a few times and then give the treat to him when his hind end hits the floor. In that short span of time, we have taught our dog a general hand signal for sit. Dr. Patricia McConnell did a study that proved dogs are very visual and in tune with body language and hand signals. They do not listen to our voices that well, probably for the fact that we talk at them constantly. Once our dog has a good understanding of the hand signal, we then will tie the verbal cue Sit to it, thus teaching our dogs English as a Second Language (ESL).