Like many other dog owners I’m often amazed at how my dogs respond to my wife and I.  Sometimes it’s as if they were just a little smarter they might start to talk. Our dogs know a lot of words and what is meant when we say them…… “go outside, get it, watch TV, go to bed, time to eat, poop?, bad dog, no, good dog, etc.”

Then they also understand inflections and what the coloring of tone can mean to a phrase.  When I’m playing rough with my dog buster and playfully say, “you bad dog,” he knows it’s play.  But, I can say the exact same phrase with a different tone and inflection and he understands that he is being bad.

What these are are signals.  Dogs can learn and remember quite a few signals.  As humans are creatures of habit, dogs will attune to their owners and remember what the owner means by certain actions and spoken phrases.  If you want to train your dog for certain signals all you have to do is repeat them on a daily basis the same way for the desired action.

Why are dogs so good at learning signals, as compared to say cats?  Dogs are pack animals and very social.  Like most people.  Pack animals tend to be smarter and capable of learning more.   Sorry, to the cat people, but it’s been proven that dogs are smarter.  Cat’s are aloof because, well, they are less mentally developed and not pack animals.