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Chapter 3: Communicating with Your Dog

In order to train your dog successfully, you need to communicate with him. Sounds easy, but it’s not always easy to communicate with animals that don’t think like we do.

The most common problems between dogs and humans are based on poor communication. You want Fido off the couch, but he thinks that the couch is a convenient perch for looking out the window. You want him to potty outside, but he thinks that you let him outside to chase squirrels. You expect one thing to happen, but your dog may have a completely different idea.

You may think that what you’re telling your dog is crystal clear, but it’s likely he doesn’t have a clue what you’re saying. Dogs don’t speak English. They can learn your words, but you have to teach them. You need to communicate to him in terms that he can understand. So, if you say, “Fido, Come!” and he doesn’t run to you, it’s not surprising. Repeating the cue over and over again won’t help him learn it any faster. Saying it louder or in a stern voice won’t help, either. He can hear you, but he just doesn’t understand what you’re saying. You have to train him to understand what “Fido, Come!” means. This book will help you!

You do not need to yell at your dog or use a mean tone of voice for him to perform. Who wants to have to yell at their dog all the time? It’s just not necessary, especially if you use positive methods to train. You could whisper the cues and he would respond happily.

Your dog may be able to hear you, but that doesn’t mean that he understands what you are saying.

Get the Behavior First and then Add the Cue

Since dogs don’t understand your verbal language, it’s more effective in training to get your dog to do the behavior first, before putting a verbal label on it. If you try to teach your dog a verbal cue when you are first training a behavior, it just clutters the situation and can confuse your dog. You’re going to want to talk to your dog—it’s a human thing to want to do! Just remember that your words mean very little to your dog until you teach him.

Once a behavior is reliable, then you’ll attach a cue to it. It will take many repetitions for your dog to understand that when he hears a cue, he should perform a behavior. It’s harder for dogs to learn verbal signals, so it will take him a while to connect them to the correct behaviors. This doesn’t mean that you should run boring, repetitive drills when training. Training sessions should be very short—only a few minutes at a time. You want to leave your dog wanting more, not bore him so he loses interest.

Using Effective Cues

To get the best results, here are some things to keep in mind when communicating with your dog:

•Keep cues short, and they will be easier for your dog to understand. Saying, “Come!” is more effective than saying, “Come over here!”

•Use one cue to mean one action. If you use the cue Down when you want your dog to stop jumping on you, don’t also use Down to tell him to lie down on the ground. This is too confusing for your dog. How is he supposed to know which Down you mean?

•Be consistent with your cues. If you say, “Come!” once, and then, “Come here!” another time, and later “Come on!”, you will just make it harder for your dog to learn what you want. Pick one cue for each specific action. Make sure that everyone who interacts with your dog, such as other family members, uses the same cues.

•Use a friendly voice. Some people make the mistake of delivering every cue in a stern “no-nonsense” voice, but this is not necessary and can even make it harder to train a shy or fearful dog. Dogs don’t understand your language, but they do understand your tone. If you say all of your cues in a stern voice, your dog could interpret it to mean that you are unhappy with him. Even happy, bouncy dogs don’t need you to sound like a military drill instructor. Save your stern voice for when your dog is doing something really bad … and if you train your dog, those times will be few and far between!

It’s sometimes helpful to use your dog’s name right before a cue, such as “Fido, Sit” or “Fido, Down.” It can be especially good if you have more than one dog and need to get an individual dog’s attention. Keep in mind, however, that if you don’t assign a behavior to the dog’s name, then the name itself doesn’t mean anything other than to get the dog’s attention and indicate that you are talking to him.

For example, in the pet-supply store, you see a frazzled-looking woman with a bouncy Boxer puppy lunging at the end of his leash. She yells, “Buster! Buster! Buster! BUSTER! BUSTER!!” This is just a name, not an action. What does she want the dog to do? If she hasn’t trained the dog specifically to do something at the sound of his name, then repeating it over and over again isn’t helpful or communicative.

Now, say, for example, that the owner had taught Buster that when he hears his name, he should look at her. That would be a good way to get the puppy’s attention, and saying his name would mean something to him.

When you say a cue, try to say it one time only. Repeating it won’t help your dog perform the cue any faster, and you’ll just be teaching him that you’re going to say something a dozen times before you expect him to respond. This can be a very hard habit for people to break. If you want your dog to respond the first time that you cue him to do something, you have to cue the behavior just one time.

Be consistent with your cues.

Dog vocalizations can mean different things

Whine—Whining could mean excitement, stress, or fear.

Bark—Dogs bark because they’re bored, excited, afraid, or alert to something. Dogs bark when they want something. They bark to get attention, and they bark when they want something scary to go away. Some breeds, such as the Miniature Schnauzer and Shetland Sheepdog, tend to bark more than others. Other breeds, such as the Basenji, don’t bark at all.

Growl—Dogs growl when they are playing, stressed, or angry. If your dog is playing, and he growls, it’s normally nothing to be concerned about. If your dog growls over food or toys, or at other dogs and people, it’s best to get professional help. What you don’t want to do is punish him for growling! A growl is communication—the dog is telling you something important. Punishing him for growling will just make him stop warning you—it won’t get rid of the problem. You want a dog to warn you before he feels the need to bite!

The Body Tells the Tale

If you really want to better understand what your dog is saying to you, his body language will tell you just about everything. Dogs have an intricate, expansive vocabulary of body language; it’s how they communicate best with each other. Dogs know a friendly dog by what he does, what he looks like, and how he acts. They also recognize a hostile dog in the same way. Dogs show that they are afraid by their body language. By communicating with body language, a dog can diffuse a potentially tense situation and avoid fights. By better understanding a dog’s body language, you will better understand your dog.

Ears

When a dog’s ears lay flat, it can indicate fear. Ears forward indicate interest or excitement. Note that some dogs have ears that don’t allow them to show a lot of expression. For example, Cocker Spaniels have beautiful, long ears that naturally lay flat and won’t stand erect.

Eyes

A soft, sweet expression indicates friendliness or contentment. Your dog’s eyes might even squint. If your dog looks at you with a friendly or alert expression, it’s perfectly fine. Some people worry that if a dog looks them in the eyes, it’s a challenge or the dog is trying to assert himself. Hardly! Your dog is likely just making a friendly connection or trying to read your own expression. Eye contact is a sign of confidence, which is not the same thing as defiance. This is why shy or nervous dogs will often look away from you.

A soft, sweet expression in your dog’s eyes indicates friendliness or contentment.

Mouth

Some dogs smile, and it’s exactly what you think it is—a sign of happiness. A tense, closed mouth is a sign of stress. The lips may be pulled back at the corners. Depending on the context, panting can indicate stress. A dog that has been running will pant, and it doesn’t mean that he’s upset, but a dog that’s afraid of thunderstorms will often pant as the storm begins. Dogs may pant if they are in pain. Also, if a dog is panting and closes his mouth, it can indicate increased stress. For example, if a dog is panting at the veterinarian’s office and he suddenly stops when the veterinary technician approaches with a thermometer, the dog’s stress has just increased.

When a dog is warning you or another animal to stay away, his lips may move forward over his teeth so that they look puffy. His lips can also curl up in a snarl and retract to expose his teeth; this may be accompanied by a growl. This is different from a submissive grin, which is often mistaken for a snarl. In a submissive grin, the dog’s lips pull up vertically to expose the front teeth. It’s almost always accompanied by a submissive body posture—curved body; low, wagging tail; frequent looking away; and squinty eyes.

Tail

A tail tucked under is an indication of fear. A wagging tail is often mistaken for a sign of friendliness, but this could be a serious mistake. Just because a dog is wagging his tail doesn’t mean that he is social or that he wants you to pet him. A tail that is very low and wagging rapidly can indicate stress or fear, and it can also indicate excitement. A tail that is held very high and wagging indicates high arousal. The dog could be excited to greet you, or he could be getting agitated and contemplating lunging or even biting. In general, a mid-level or low, swishy tail wag is a sign of happiness or friendliness. Some dogs get so happy and excited that their tails go around in big circles.

Overall Body Posture

A dog’s overall body posture can tell you a lot about his intentions and what he is feeling. A dog that puts most of his weight on his hindquarters is trying to increase distance between himself and something. He could be unsure or afraid. When his weight is balanced forward, he’s trying to decrease distance. He is interested or eager. For example, a puppy who is unsure of a tall man may lean backward, away from the man. When he decides that the man is OK, he will lean or move toward him. If a dog is conflicted, he’ll shift his weight back and forth. He could be afraid yet interested at the same time.

A curved body posture indicates friendliness or appeasement. Some dogs seem to wiggle and wag with their entire bodies! When a dog lifts his paw, it also indicates appeasement and could be an invitation to play. When a dog lowers his head and bends his elbows, but his rear remains up, this is called a play bow. It’s an invitation to play and a way for a dog to indicate that he is not a threat.

When a dog lowers his head, stiffens his body, and affixes a hard-staring “lock and load” expression, his intent is to threaten. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the dog will bite, but he is definitely telling you to go away. If pressed, he could escalate to a bite. You may see the fur on the back of his neck or all down his back rise up. This is called “piloerection.”

This is a play bow.

Did You Know? Curly Tails

Not every dog will display a wide range of communication with his tail. Some dogs have tightly curled tails that don’t often move out of position, no matter what they’re feeling.

Signs of Stress

Just as a dog’s body language will tell you whether he’s happy or aggressive, it will also tell you if he’s stressed or afraid. These are important signals to learn. If your dog is showing signs that he is nervous or fearful while you are training, for example, you’ll need to stop your training session and address your dog’s distress. It’s much harder for a dog to learn when he is upset. Imagine trying to learn a complicated math equation if you were afraid—it would be challenging! If you want your training sessions to be successful, learn the canine signs of stress so that you can monitor your dog’s emotional state. Stress signals are also critical to learn when you are socializing a young puppy as well as to help your dog throughout his life.

If your dog displays one or two of the following behaviors, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he is stressed or fearful. Take account of his body language as a whole, and consider the context. For example, if you take your dog into a pet-supply store and he yawns a bit and licks his lips, but he is stepping brightly and pulling you to explore, he likely is excited. But if he yawns, licks his lips, tucks his tail, and cowers and presses against you, then he is stressed.

Here are signs of stress to look for:

•Licking lips

•Yawning

•Cowering

•Quivering, trembling

•Whining

•Shaking off (similar to what dogs do when they are wet, but in this case they are dry)

•Tucking tail

•Turning away, avoiding, trying to get away

•Flattening ears

•Wet pawprints (dogs sweat through their pawpads)

Yawning can be a sign of stress.

Sometimes a dog will display a behavior out of context. It’s a normal behavior, but it’s odd for the situation. This is called a “displacement signal” or “cutoff signal” and can indicate stress. For example, your friend brings her new puppy over to meet your dog. As the puppy comes into the house, your dog rushes over to greet him. The puppy suddenly starts sniffing the floor. It’s not unusual for a puppy to sniff at a floor, but it does seem an odd priority with another dog barreling into his personal space. The sniffing is a displacement signal. The puppy could be signaling to your dog that he is not a threat by avoiding direct eye contact. He could also be indicating he is stressed at your dog’s boisterous greeting.

Your Body Language

Just as your dog communicates with you using body language, your body language sends communication signals to your dog. Sometimes, you could be sending messages that you don’t really mean. For example, if you bend or loom over a dog, you could unwittingly intimidate him. Some dogs won’t mind it at all, but sensitive or fearful dogs could be frightened.

Your body language affects your training. If you bend over at the waist and call your dog to come to you, he may come but sit at a distance from you so that you are not looming over him. If you bend at the knees and crouch down to call him, he may come more enthusiastically because you have lowered your body and are less intimidating.

When you are angry or upset, your body language changes. Always be sure that you are in a good mood and full of patience when you train your dog; otherwise, he will sense when you are upset. Your body will be stiffer, your hands may clench, your jaw might tighten, your voice may sound different. You may think that you’re acting the same as you usually do, but your dog is very perceptive and will notice even the slightest change. Your dog may be less likely to respond to your cues when you are tense or upset. He may even start bouncing around and acting silly, trying to reduce the tension! This will likely just make you tenser, so it ends up being a frustrating training session.

Staring a dog in the eyes intently is very assertive, and some dogs may find it a challenge. This can be especially troublesome with children. Some children like to cradle a dog’s face, get close, and stare into in his eyes. They mean it affectionately, but do not allow this! While some dogs will tolerate this, others will not. And in this position, the dog’s proximity to a child’s face is extremely dangerous. Even if your dog doesn’t mind, children don’t often understand that what one dog likes, another dog will not. So if your child should try to get too close to a dog that is less tolerant, there could be a tragedy.

It’s easier for dogs to learn hand signals than verbal cues.

Hands Over Words

Because dogs are so in tune to body language, it is easy to teach them hand signals. It’s easier for them to learn hand signals or other physical cues than it is for them to grasp verbal cues. They can learn verbal cues, of course, but it just takes a bit longer.

It’s important to be consistent when you use hand signals or other physical cues with your dog, just as with other aspects of dog training. If you motion downward with your hand pointed when teaching your dog to Down, but then one day you keep your hand by your side, your dog may not respond. He’s not being defiant, he’s just confused. He’s learned that your hand pointing downward means you want him to lie down, and you didn’t make that motion. This doesn’t mean that you always have to make exaggerated hand signals in order for your dog to perform. You can “fade” hand signals to make them smaller, you just have to do it gradually.

A Dog’s Senses

A dog’s senses are much more acute than a human’s. That’s why your dog is so good at reading your body language. It also explains why dogs can be distracted during training, or when you take them for walks, or in new locations. They can perceive things that you can’t!

Dogs have far superior scenting ability than we do.

The All-Knowing Nose

A dog’s sense of smell is uncanny. Scientists have not been able to pinpoint exactly how powerful it is, but they estimate that it is 10,000 to 100,000 times more acute than ours. Dogs have up to 300 million olfactory (scent) receptors in their noses. We have about six million. Dogs also have a significantly large part of their brains dedicated to analyzing smells—about 40 percent more than we do.

When we inhale, we smell and breathe through the same pathways in our noses. When dogs inhale, a fold of tissue within their noses separates the air into two pathways: one is for smelling, and the other is for breathing. Researchers have determined that about 12 percent of the air goes to a recessed part in the back of the dog’s nose that is dedicated to smelling. The rest goes into the lungs.

When we exhale, we send air out the way it came in—through a single pathway. When dogs exhale, the air goes through slits in the sides of their noses. When this air rushes out, it swirls new odors into the dog’s nose. It also lets a dog sniff almost continuously.

As if this wasn’t enough to make them superb smelling machines, dogs have a part of anatomy that we don’t. It’s called the Jacobson’s organ. It’s at the bottom of the dog’s nasal passage, and it senses pheromones, which are the chemicals that animals produce to attract other animals, especially their mates. The pheromone molecules that the Jacobson’s organ detects don’t mix with the other odor molecules. The Jacobson’s organ has its own nerves, which lead to the part of the brain that is dedicated to analyzing pheromones.

It’s no wonder that dogs are so distracted by smells! They’re very good at smelling because of their anatomy. Some breeds and individual dogs are better at scenting than others, but all dogs have far superior scenting ability than we do. Dogs excel at scent sports, such as tracking and K9 Nose Work^®. They also serve people by working in search and rescue, cadaver detection, and more. Some have been trained to detect termites, bed bugs, and even cancer by scent.

Did You Know? There’s More to a Nose Wiggle than Meets the Eye

A cool thing that dogs can do that we can’t is wiggle their nostrils independently of each other. The aerodynamic reach of each nostril is smaller than the distance between the nostrils. What this means is that a dog can tell which nostril an odor enters, which helps him track scent.

The Eyes: Not Just Black and White

We used to think that dogs could see in only black and white, but recent research indicates otherwise. Dogs may actually have some color vision. How an eye perceives color is based on the presence of cone photoreceptors in the eye’s retina. The cone photoreceptors work in bright light. The central region of a human’s retina consists of 100 percent cone photoreceptors, while only about 20 percent of the photoreceptors in the same region in dogs are cone photoreceptors. So while we’re able to see a broad range of colors, dogs can see only a few. Researchers have conducted behavioral tests in dogs indicating that dogs can tell the difference between red and blue but have difficulty telling the difference between red and green.

Where eyes are placed on the head determines what kind of peripheral vision an animal has, as well as the size of the visual field that the two eyes can see at one time. Dogs’ eyes are on the sides of their heads, which means that they have a visual field of 240 degrees, whereas humans have a visual field of 200 degrees.

Binocular vision is used to judge distances. Dogs have about half of the binocular vision as humans do. Thus, dogs have better peripheral vision than we do, but they need to be closer to objects than we do to see them clearly.

What Can Dogs Hear?

Puppies are born deaf. Their ears don’t open until they are about two weeks old. Some dogs have floppy ears, either short or long. Some have prick ears. No matter what shape or size, there are about eighteen muscles in the ear that move it in different directions to help a dog hear sound. Dogs’ ears can move independently of each other. Dogs can hear sounds at significantly higher frequencies than we can.

A dog’s ear canal is different from a human’s. People have ear canals that are horizontal to the ear drum. In dogs, the ear canal is L-shaped. It’s vertical toward the jaw, and then it takes about a 90-degree turn horizontally near the ear drum. This shape makes the ear canal difficult to examine without special equipment. It also makes the ear a host for bacterial and yeast infections, especially in drop-eared dogs, where the ear flap covering the ear canal provides a moist environment.

Dogs can hear sounds at significantly higher frequencies than we can.

Taste and Touch

Dogs do not have as many taste buds as we do, which means that they can’t taste the range of flavors that we can. This may explain why some dogs appear to eat anything! Dogs can taste sweet, salty, sour, and bitter tastes, but they smell more than they taste. Their powerful sense of smell compensates a bit for their lack of taste buds.

Dogs do have a great sense of touch. Mothers immediately lick their newborns, and very young puppies huddle together for warmth. They have touch-sensitive hairs, called vibrissae, above the eyes, on the muzzle, and below the jaw. The vibrissae can detect air flow. A dog’s entire body, including his paws, has touch-sensitive nerve endings.

Just because a dog can feel touch doesn’t mean that he finds all petting pleasurable. Individual dogs can develop individual preferences. For example, one dog may love having you scratch behind his ears while another will maneuver himself so you scratch his rear. Some dogs don’t really enjoy petting at all. They may not have been conditioned to find it a positive experience as puppies, or it may just be a personal preference.

Try This! Training Independent-Minded Dogs

Dogs have different personalities, unique to themselves. Some are naturally more independent-minded than others. Some breeds were even developed to work independently from people. The Great Pyrenees, for example, is a flock-guarding dog. His job is to live with a flock of sheep night and day, protecting them from danger. He isn’t supposed to wait for a farmer to tell him what to do. A Border Collie, on the other hand, gets his directions from the shepherd to tell him which way to move the sheep. Border Collies are bred to work more closely with people than Great Pyrenees.

Just because a dog is independent doesn’t mean that he is stubborn or “blowing you off.” It also doesn’t mean that you can’t train him. Training is all about the motivation. You just need to find a reward that appeals to your independent dog. Up the ante on the treats, using small pieces of chicken or steak, and keep training sessions extremely short, with very few repetitions. Your dog will soon learn that working with you is a positive experience.