Training With Humor
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
I don't have any Children, but occasionally my child rearing friends will ask me in Sheila toe watch their Children for a few hours so they can go to the store, run a few errands or most likely, I suspect, take a long nap. Sometimes it surprises me that they trust the fruit of their loins with the dog guy in his old sweatshirts and the faint but ever persistent odor of pet dander. It's fine, though. Sheila does most of the watching, and in any case, I know I'm trustworthy. We were watching our friends almost two year old son Brandon one day, and she left the baby with me for a few minutes. Brandon wasn't very talkative, but somehow still noisy in a pinch, though I make a passable surrogate uncle with a fair assortment of silly faces and visual gags, so we got along fine. What I didn't know was that his parents had taught him some baby sign language so that he can sign when he wants something like if he wants to be held or is thirsty. Basically, his parents gave him another way for him to boss them around before learning the overrated skill of talking anyways, so I'm entertaining Brandon with raspberries and such. When he suddenly stops in his tracks, he looks me dead in the eyes. He grabbed his thumb with his other hand and then pulled his thumb down. I thought he was playing a game, so I grabbed my thumb to make the same motion with a huge grin on my face. Brandon glared at me and motioned again. Not one to be intimidated by a toddler. I repeat the same movement after we do this a few more times. He had this scrunched and tense look on his face for about four or five seconds before relaxing, and then the smell hit me. That is how I learned sign language for the word poop. While it isn't correct to treat your dog like a baby, there are some similarities. At any given moment. Your dog is communicating how she's feeling and what she needs and wants through a series of verbal and nonverbal cues, much like a baby. We've already discussed several of these cues and what they mean, but in this chapter we will go completely in depth to discuss each que in detail and, most importantly, show you how to respond to your dog. Appropriately. Learning this two way communication is the key to understanding your dogs, feelings and motivations, as well as making them feel cared for and loved. In terms of verbal commands, The average dog can understand up to as many as 165 different words, which is fairly close to the number understood by a 1.5 year old child. Unlike a toddler, your dog won't be able to speak any of them. The spoken vocabulary of dogs is limited to verbal signs like barks, wines, howls and growls and non verbal signs like wagging, her tail trembling or teeth baring, among others. These signals are your dogs. Onley means of communication to you and others. Before we begin this discussion, let me first mention how important it is not to punish your pup for using some of the noisier signals in her vocabulary, even if they're bothersome and obnoxious at times. Remember, your dog is not trying to be annoying. They're just trying to communicate how they feel and one of the fundamental ways they do. This is through barking and whining. If your dog is whining. It might be because they just want attention. But it might also be because their water bowl is empty, a situation which definitely needs to be remedied immediately. And it is a perfectly valid reason. Toe wine or bark barking at passers by or the endless crawling squirrels in the front yard might not be ideal, but a barking dog is incredibly useful for things like hunting wild game, knowing when someone is at the door or even finding trapped civilians in a collapsed building. These utilitarian uses for dogs and they're beautiful voices are only possible if your pups are allowed the freedom to communicate with you when they need to. In addition, if you continually shut your dog down when they try to speak, they eventually won't communicate with you at all. Most importantly, they will lose their ability to tell you that they are uncomfortable, which can lead to great and unnecessary tragedy. Ideally, a dog should be able to display their discomfort from a distance with barks and growls rather than hold it in until you're close enough for this muted and terrified dog to bite you just like it does in people. Emotional expression brings contentment. An emotional suppression brings neuroticism