English only...

In the past 68 years I have had 5 GSDs and one BSD. With the first four, I used the standard behavior training with sharp commands, etc.

Over the ears, I'd noticed that, after a few years, the dogs would "pickup" on certain words and appear to understand conversations between my wife and I.

So we decided with our new puppy, 8 week old Thor, GSD AKC, that we would raise him much as we had our four bipedal kids - using plain English and no one word commands. We spoke to him, and to my BSD Lady, as if they were people who understood human language.

Guess what? Thor did and Lady does. (Or did- she's deaf now.)

One could not hope for better behaved dogs. Thor did break a crystal bud vase that was on the coffee table by wagging his tail - but even that happened only once. None of my other dogs ever damaged anything once past the very young puppy stage. Even their squeaky toys lasted a long, long time - sometimes years, even tho they were played with almost daily.

Food, including candy open on the coffee tables was not touched - again with one exception each for Thor & Lady: Thor took - during the night - one piece fo See's Chocolate from the open box. Just one. And never again. No, he was not scolded for it! And Lady was most curious about a nut covered cheeseball when we had company. She had walked up near it several times and sniffed from a distance of about a foot. Then, when the guests were leaving, I watched out of the corner of my eye as she strolled up to the Cheeseball and took the tinest bite of it - about the size you'd expect a mouse to take. Satisfied, she walked away. I was laughing 'way too hard to chastise her! She obvioously figured that, since the guests were ;eavomg. tje Cheeseball was a "left-over" and so O.K. for her to sample.

Thor greeted guests in a quiet, friendly manner, then retaired to some out-of-the-way location, still a part of the group. Lady does the same, but then usually leaves the room for the duration. Never any sniffing or jumping upon, the guests.

All this fine behavior somehow resulted from simply talking to them. (Actually, Thor "taught" Lady the rules, for we'd had him 5 years before we rescued 2 yr old Lady.)

I am convinced the intelligence of any dog allows it to quickly comprehend human language and react appropriately to it. Certainly it has worked delightfully well for us - and we're far from expert on things canine! (I am, finally, learning a little Dog, however. Can't speak it, but sometimes understand it!)

Dogs do pick up a certain amount from their owners, spoken language, but also, tone, body language, demeanour, emotions, gestures and a whole range of things. All of which help the dog to understand what is required of them and all of which can be employed within varous training techniques. GSD's are one of the cleverest dogs around and very quickly learn. Sounds like you have fun with your two dogs.

Jake recognises a few words for sure, including the obvious 'breakfast', 'dinner' and 'walk'. Noticed another one recently but am not sure what he associates it with! It's 'ready'. He seems to get really excited when he hears it. I guess he hears it most when we're getting ready to go out or sometimes when we're playing so I suppose he takes it to mean something interesting/exciting is about to happen. whatever, it's quite fun to ask him if he's 'ready' only for him to start looning around with excitement!