To be fair to them, a lot of what mine do is response to body language. A finger is a finger, in any language! (Which means don't you dare move!)

Ok you have me stumped here, what is not 100% about a word? I am very befuddled..................

My sister had a JRT when she lived with my parents. When she moved to live in Wales with her boyfriend the dog went too. Her boyfriend worked from home and inbetween working taught the dog commands in welsh. The dog would respond to both english and welsh commands.

Half the time I am not sure which language I am using when I talk to Pereg, but some commands are in either language. She definitely understands both languages as my neighbour, who Pereg adores [it is mutual] does not speak a word of English and there is no similarity whatsoever in most words.

I usually use Ivrit for "no" and for "come", also for praise when I want to say "good girl" - but I also use a fair amount of sign language with her, clapping my hands to get her attention and then gesturing or pointing, because I live in silence most of the time.

Mind you, I have been known to yell "coom 'ere ya little booger" or "shift yer fat @rse" - the latter when she tries to take over the bed!

Sounds pretentious to me or is it because the Poodle was originally a German breed? (even though everyone thinks they are French!)

I have never thought about teaching mine commands in the language of their home country.

Right, Jasper speaks Jasper, some English if he wants, but Kyesh reacts better to some commands in welsh, just because they sound better, one example, I think the word Come is hard so always use the Welsh Tidama, (not spelt like that just said like that Tid-a-ma, gorgeous. I us a few others to, I can swear in welsh to !!!!

Words is words and mean nothing to dogs till you give them meaning

I wonder tho if you gave commands in another language it would then be the only time he heard that word and so it might be stronger (and also you wouldnt have other people randomly using confusing commands - like asking my dog to get off the sofa by saying 'down' Mia just looked back with the clear expression saying 'I am already lying down'

also from the little german I know it is more crisp, sounds more like commands mibby?
But really you can use whatever you want

and yup dogs seem to be smart enough to pick up more than one word to mean the same thing - although of course it is much better if you can be consistent

I agree with this.

This thread remind me of a time I was doing agility training with Liadan last year who is my oh's dog. I could not get a wait with her. Our instructor took her and walked way. Ok, Go, Liadan come as she just sat there waiting. He said to me what is her release command? I replied I have no idea. He said Liadan wait and off she went!! I then tried it myself and the same thing happened. Yes to Liadan wait meant go

We met a Spanish lady and her Boxer the other year.... her dog, Doris, responsed to commands in both Spanish and English....

By the end of the weekend, both my boys were responding to commands in Spanish...

I mean, you could use the word "Egg" to mean Sit, and "Banana" to mean Down and the dogs would still learn it. They're not listening for the 'word' as such, just the phonetics/sounds... as long as you are consistent with the word, then you can use anything, in any language.

My friend has a 10 month old Rottweiler who is brilliant, but no matter how hard she trained him he couldn't master the "down" command. Being originally from Germany she changed the command to "platz" and began training him using this instead. He picked it up really quickly and is now responding to this perfectly.