Dogs pick up on more words than we give them credit for. They are very capable of learning 100 to 200 words and some learn more.
In the book “The Loved Dog” Tamar Geller encourages dog owners to teach their dogs as many words as possible by saying words like “walk,” “drink,” “cat” or “play” over and over.
I made a list of every word I know my mutt Ace recognizes. I counted about 70 words, and they are listed at the end of this post.
Of course, Ace recognizes some words better than others. He knows words like “Ace,” “ball” and “come” no matter what. To understand other words, he has to be in a certain area because it only makes sense to him in certain contexts such as when we practice agility or when we get in the car. And some words like ”crawl” and “stand” only make sense to Ace if he sees a hand signal. I also assume there are some I’ve forgotten and at least a few others my dog recognizes without me even realizing it.
It’s helpful to make a list of all the words your dog knows so you can try to increase the number of words on the list.
To help a dog learn more words, Tamar suggests creating a pattern in the dog’s mind so he will learn to connect the pattern with the word. She says to constantly acknowledge “good” behavior by repeating the word for the action over and over when the dog is doing the action without being told.
For example, since I am trying to reinforce Ace’s understanding of the word “stand,” I will repeat the word stand, stand, stand when he’s standing still with all four paws on the ground. I’m not telling him to do anything. Instead, he gets attention and praise just for standing!
Teach dogs short words
When I made Ace’s list of words, I realized many of the “words” Ace knows are actually phrases. For example, “Get your toy” or “Where’s the ball?” or “Find Scout.” Al of these could be much simpler - toy, ball, Scout. When teaching Ace new words, I will make sure to be much more precise.
Phrases can be confusing to a dog if the same words are used in multiple phrases such as ”load up,” “get up” “hurry up” “table, up” and “back up.” Or how about the classic mistake of using “down” to mean both lie down and don’t jump. Why not use the word “off”? Talk about confusing!
Some words I am working on with Ace right now include “back up,” “leash,” “Josh” “upstairs” and “which one?”
Ace usually takes awhile to catch on to precise commands. Perhaps he has a teacher who tries to rush him. He has a tendency to get either too excited and lose the ability to think through problems, or he just stands there and doesn’t do anything for fear of being wrong. He waits for me to show him or to physically make him do the right thing.
My goal is to slow down, and as Tamar suggests, to allow Ace to think through the concept on his own. I don’t have to be so quick to correct, but instead I should encourage him to try. When I say a word and the wait a few seconds, I can see Ace thinking and I notice when it clicks. I love showering him with praise when he gets a command right for the first time.
I don’t learn very well when someone gives me orders or walks me through the motions. I need to try new concepts for myself, screw up a few times and think through the patterns.
Maybe this mutt and I have more in common than I thought.
How many words does your dog recognize? What is the most unique word she knows?
Words Ace recognizes:
Ace, Ace of Spades, Bad, Ball, Back up, Bang, Beamer, Bucket, Catch, Climb it, Come, Crawl, Down, Drop, Heel, Here, High five, Hug, Hungry?, Hurry, Find it, Get it, Give me ten, Go long, Good, Good boy, Go, Go lie down, Go to your bed, I’ll be back, Jump, Kennel, Kisses, Leave it, Let’s go, Load up, No, Off, OK, Out, Outside?, Quiet, Ready?, Roll over, Say your prayers, Scout, Shake, Sing, Sit, Slide, Slow, Speak, Stand, Stay, Stick, Teeter, That’s right, Tire, Touch, Toy, Treat, Tunnel, Turn, Up, Wag your tail, Wait, Walk it, Watch, Water, Weave, Where is it?, Which one?, Yes, You coming?, You’re staying
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Hi Lindsay,
I came across your site over the weekend and have been enjoying browsing through your articles. I enjoy the information you present, so thanks for sharing.
I think we all take our dogs for granted sometimes. For example, we tend to talk them in human terms – at least I do
– even when it comes to training and using commands. To tell you the truth, I never stopped to think that perhaps my dog is really tuning in to the words I say and not just my tone of voice, or how I say things. I never realized that dogs were in fact capable of understanding so many words, in context even.
Just goes to show you that we never stop learning about our dogs, no matter how long we have shared our lives with them. Thanks for sharing.
Omar Reyes
Thanks for reading my blog, Omar. In some ways, dogs are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. And then in other ways, they are a lot “dumber” than we think, too. We tend to believe they have human qualities and emotions when in fact they are just dogs most likely thinking about food or attention.
Well said Lindsay. Sometimes I just look at Misha and shake my head and wonder, “why did you just do that”. And at other times she amazes me with the things she picks up on.
Omar
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Three of my dogs have normal vocabularies, but I am convinced that my alpha Poodle knows as many words as I do.
Haha!
Great post!
You’ve identified one of the biggest mistakes I was making when we first got Lady: I talked to her like she was a small child. Way too many words, complete sentences, using synonyms. Narrating everything we were doing, speaking of the past, pondering the future, etc.
Once I realized how much I was doing this, I SHUT UP. I communicate with her all the time via my energy, body languagem and touch. She really doesn’t need me yammering on all the time, and I felt like I was delaying her ability to expand her vocabulary in the way a dog can learn words. Now, I do my best to limit the number of syllables in each command and make sure the vowel sounds and dominant consonants are distinct from one another. Plus, I try to introduce a hand signal, since she learns that faster.
How many words does she know? I have no clue! Within the first week from when we adopted her, at one point, I was still in narration mode, and I said to her, “We’ll head out for a walk, just let me go get my socks.” Now, dogs tend to only hear the very end of what you say. Lady disappeared into another room, while my husband and I discussed who was going for the walk. She came back with one of his socks in her mouth! Now, she has never before or after *ever* picked up any piece of his clothing from the floor, and we weren’t in the same room as the socks, so did she know the word socks? Maybe. I could test it, but I haven’t bothered to yet, because we’re working on so many other commands and phrases, I don’t really care if she knows the word socks. That’s the thing about adopting an adult dog. Who knows what vocabulary he or she has? I’m always curious what our next discovery will be!
Wow that’s a crazy story about the sock! I wonder if Lady did know the word sock. Who knows! Yeah, I think we need to find a balance. It’s good to talk to our dogs to help them learn words, but they don’t have a clue what we’re talking about when we speak to them as though they are humans.
Hi Lindsay, great post. While our puppies are still learning the basic words (sit, stay, lay, go pee …) we are working on one unique word: firewood. We live on a farm and are using ‘firewood’ for playing with sticks. Our hope is one day we can call ‘firewood’ and they will run out and bring back kindling.
Your firewood idea is great! I go camping with my dog sometimes, and I will tell him “stick” and he runs and gets a stick. It’s cute when we are trying to build a fire. Since he’s a retriever, he will also just carry a small piece of firewood if I hand him one. He doesn’t know the word firewood, though. Just stick.
So suppose one has a dog of a somewhat obstinate and independent breed…say, a “kuvasz”… who always takes his time deciding whether he wants to do what you’re saying. How do you figure out if he knows a word or not?
Ha, that is such a good point! I have a feeling he knows a lot more than we realize!
Ha! I’ll tell you the word that Gus does not acknowledge – “no”. He just stares at me with the sad, bloodhound look and pants. Silly.
Haha! Aww, Gus is so cute!
My dogs have picked up words on their own from just causual conversation. I can’t say words like, “food”, “hungry”, “dinner”, “eat”, “cookies”, “leash”, “shoes”, “walk”, “car”, or “go” without them perking up their ears. Since I talk to my dogs all they time, the pretty much ignore me until they hear a word they like – and I don’t even have to use my doggie voice or commanding voice when I say them.
Ha! Yeah, that is how Ace learned hungry, water, treat, etc. The word “ball” is what gets Ace the most excited. Sometimes my boyfriend and I will casually say the word ball in a conversation to see if Ace notices. Or we will whisper the word from another room.
What? No spelling? Hehehe.
Ha. I actually never spell things. We just randomly say the word ball as a game with him.
Hey there Lindsay- Emma is so smart! I regularly use phrases like, Time for breakfast, Time for dinner, Go outside, Go potty, come, heel, load up, good dog, bad dog, no, where’s brother? where’s squeekers, go to bed, go lie down, sit, lay down, and What do you want? (which elicits two quick barks.) I think there’s more but that’s all that comes to mind for now.
Aw, Emma is so cute. I love that she knows “Where’s Squeekers?” Haha. And “Where’s Brother?”
I know I’m late to the discussion, but just enjoyed reading this post since it’s something I think about a lot. I really think Muffin understands EVERYTHING I say, but especially “ball”.
When talking to my girlfriend we have to spell it out, like “do you know where she left her B-A-L-L-? And even then she’ll perk up sometimes!
I know Ace understands ball more than anything. I haven’t tried spelling it out. Not sure if he’d pick up on that eventually or not!
Thanks for encouraging me to teach my Rottweiler even more words. He’s 2 and we were quite impressed when we listed 27 words and phrases he knows. But I’ll keep going. He’s now learning Frnech!
That’s awesome! Keep working with him, I’m sure he loves learning as much as possible!