Nobody said dogs "instinctively" understand human language. I said my dogs understand what no means, and Gnasher said the same. You're right, you're missing something.

Your arrogance and sarcasm is matched only by your apparent inability to read and comprehend since you've mentioned things several times that nobody said, so you must be conjuring them up in your head. I applaud your vivid imagination.

However, my main point was that if my SMART dog can do nearly 20 verbal commands, that he can grasp the word "No" and it's meaning, as well. And those things are true.

Saying that NO dogs can grasp the meaning and nuance of the word "No" and insinuating that it NEVER will work is just garbage, and even you know it. It has worked for ages, and will KEEP working, and works for even the OP's dog, just not when SHE uses it.

Plenty of dogs get it and it works just fine. No dogs can understand English, but they can put meaning behind certain words, same as command training. Try not to twist that up into dogs understanding English, as we all know they cannot.

I can go find 30 videos instantly on YouTube where a "No" given by the owner stops the dog in it's tracks. I'm not sure why you're clinging to that untruth, but I'm not going to bother with this thread any longer.

I feel like I am being trolled now.

wekcome to my world Myra! Im afraid this always happens when im contributing to a thread regarding training. I shall start a new thread and withdraw gracefully so as not to hijack this one any more

In the same way as they understand clickers, repetition and reward????

I think giving advice on a forum is a tremendous responsibilty. So much damage can be done and the people taking the advice suffer the consequences, not the person giving it .

When I first starting doing forums years back , my knowledge was from Jan fennel Tv programmes and my own experiences and then I met on line qualified and experienced trainers and behaviourists and realised that - I didnt know how much I didnt know- and that a little learning is a dangerous thing.

These people took the time to explain why the advice I gave in some cases wasnt the best advice or was indeed plain wrong. In the end , instead of arguing and in some cases fighting , I decided to take on board what they were saying and do my own research and learning. Its totally fascinating and I'm still learning.

Whatever your preferred method of training , you really do need to have a basic understanding of operant conditioning and respondent conditioning/classical conditioning as well as understanding of a dogs body language and recognising the dogs stress signs.

Replying to these threads where you have little back ground information and you have not met the dog or its owner can be very tricky and what worked and didnt harm your dog with your dog doesnt meant it will work with another dog.

First do no harm is a good motto and dont let your ego get in the way of listening to others no matter what you beleive in !

Quote:
Originally Posted by JoedeeUK View Post
No one has explained to me how their dog instinctively understands the human language, I must be missing something




Nippy, I think you're missing the point! Some of you are telling the OP to tell their dog NO . They are assuming that the dog will instinctively understand the word No (like magic ). It wont , so HOW exactly do you teach a dog what the word No means . Instructions please.

Dogs dont instictively understand clickers either , they have to be taught what it means and you know that, Im sure.

I've added a quote from your previous post.

Dont you think that if your dog doesnt respond to "just" the word No , then its not effective? If you have to raise your voice and point then the word No has not become a sucessful conditioned punisher. (by punisher I mean in the training term sense )
This is the point people are trying to make ,. The word No is not a primary( or natural ) punisher and you have to condition it with a natural punsisher just as you have to condition a clicker to a natural reinforcer otherwise it is meaninless.

Raising your voice to a dog doesnt make it clearer anymore than shouting at a french person will help them understand English ,

Also , if raise your voice and that your hand at a dog , especially a nervous or fear aggressive , there is a good chance it will feel threatened and attack you or it could become more frightened. Raising your voice and pointing would appear to aggressive to humans to.

I'm glad you have rescued this poor dog and helped him , its your choice what you do but I feel i have to comment becuase its not necessarily be the best way for other people and other dogs

I'm sorry to say but at times I need to raise my voice to get my dogs attention. If I were to speak to them in my normal volume 100% of the time, they might not hear me (depending on what they are doing) or may think I am speaking to another person in the room or talking to myself which I do very often. It's not like the dog is looking at me 100% of the time so that I never need to raise my voice, so how do you get their attention? Speak a little louder to carry your voice across the room better. This is the same as with people. If someone doesn't hear you, you speak louder so they can or get out of whatever is distracting them. I'm not implying full blown yelling. If I speak up louder, it catches their attention much better, then I can go ahead and get them to do what I need them to do. I'm not sure what context Gnasher uses with raising her voice as I don't know her, but to say that raising your voice doesn't get your dogs attention is a bit off.

yes i've raised my voice too sometimes , maybe the dog is engrossed or doesnt want to do what you ask. Though I have found that my dogs might go deaf when i ask them to do something but they can damn well hear me whisper chicken above aload of noise

BTW I didnt say that rasing your voice doesnt get a dog attention .

I'm trying to say that if your dog keeps failing to respond to your verbal instruction with out other emphasis , then the verbal alone isnt that effective , it can become nagging and you end up repeating yourself .
people say sit sit sit and the dog doesnt and when placing their hand on the dogs back , the dog will sit.
, maybe the dog hasnt made the transition to just the verbal form . Other reasons why it doesn;t want to sit , maybe it is to anxious.

Well I cant explain myself any better so i hope you can understand what I have been trying to say .

I'm off to the Panto so i'll say goodnight. BEHIND YOU !

Maybe I just misunderstood, so easy for that to happen when reading words on a computer screen with no voice behind them.

I just thought you were saying that raising your voice is negative because it will frighten the dog. I was just trying to say that raising your voice will not necessarily scare a dog unless your shouting and right in its face.

Good night, don't let the bed bugs bite.

Gawd knows. We could be arguing the same about children
Clickers........tell me about it. I had a Collie cross once who refused to "get it"