To think some dogs can actually pick human language?

[Bronsons]

I don’t mean the usual “come, sit, stay” stuff that most dogs can learn … I mean stuff they have never been taught but appear to have picked up like a person would pick up a language.

Im convinced my dog has picked up basic English. I can talk to her in the way id talk to a person and she seems to know exactly what I mean - obviously I don’t mean I discuss politics with her 😂 or she talks back to me etc … I’m not totally nuts …

but for example if she’s chewing her bone on a hard surface and making a racket I’ll say “move that onto the carpet Margaret” and she’ll immediately pick it up and move it onto the carpet. She’s never been taught this, I don’t even know how it happened. I’ve just gotten so used to it that when other people act surprised I’m reminded of how it maybe isn’t normal?!

Just now I was sat and she was sprawled across me but I couldn’t find the remote so I said to her “just get up a minute so I can find the remote” so she stood up, waited until I got the remote and then came back. I’ve never had a dog that seems to understand normal communication like this, my other dog doesn’t.

AIBU to think certain dogs of the intelligent kind can actually pick up the basics of a language that goes beyond “commands”?

My dog was like this. He's passed now but I have many lovely memories. I think they understand most things !
I remember once he picked up something to eat that my granddaughter had dropped. I didn't want him to eat it so I said, If you put it down, I'll get you some ham from the fridge. Straight away, unwanted food down and toddled off to the fridge 🤣

My rottweiler knew lots of things. Current ddog are thick as mince.

Maybe, maybe not...

My cat has selective hearing when I call her name.
Comes rushing at the mention of the word Dreamies in any tone of voice.

I think mine understood a few things but generally was quite thick!

Maybe just understood ‘ham’ and thought that was more appealing than what he had 🤷🏻‍♀️

I have heard that dogs have the intelligence of a 2-3 year old toddler. Whether this is true or not I have no idea, but my dog definitely understands more than the usual Sit, Stay etc.

It's difficult to explain but I can say, "go and look in your bowl, there is food in there" and she will go and look, or I can say "go and ask one of the kids if they will feed you" and she will get up and go and find another person (say if I am on a call). I guess it is to do with Key words and the fact she is nearly 14 and it is just repetition but she definitely has a level of understanding with family members.

I suspect mine understands every word I say to her. She only pretends not to in order to spare my feelings about what she sees as my relentless inane babbling.

Yes! I'm not a dog person at all though my kids are. We stayed on sheep farm and dcs loved the sheep dogs and played with them. I was around but had no interaction with them.
One afternoon, Dd said "mummy stroke this one. He's so friendly" that dog immediately walked over to me and offered me his bowed head! There is absolutely no way he didn't understand what Dd said.
We were all stunned. Including me who had to stroke the thing

Yes they can pick up a lot of words. You can get dog communication buttons where they press a button for a word to help them communicate back to you. I've seen a few videos of dogs who have quite extensive panels of buttons to communicate with their human. The sentence structure is a bit weird, but they clearly understand associations with objects and actions, and also abstract concepts such as 'later' or 'tomorrow'. Look up whataboutbunny for a good example.

Is she a collie?

Definitely. Ours understands a lot of variations of out/going out more so than just 'walk'. She also understands or picks up on the series of cues that mean a team's call is ending (I wfh!). She knows the names of our three different cats and will find them, and knows all the family names. We have an indoor cat and the dog knows she's not allowed out, she will alert us if she gets out and will shoo her away from the cat flap but does not do this to the other cats. Other than these examples she is exceptionally stupid.

'Move that onto the carpet' is an easy one because the dog knows that if they do, they'll be allowed to carry on chewing the bone.

'Stop' (a basic command) would've had the same effect.

When the dog was sprawled across you, you would've moved slightly - signalling you were getting up so they had to.

Try sitting across the other side of the room from your dog and saying, "just get up a minute so I can find the remote" and you'll get a completely different outcome.

I’m not sure they can learn meaning of the words but connections with words meaning certain action.

what they are amazingly skilled at is detecting scent and energy levels and what that means about us when they detect it

Watch the secret life of dogs/cats. Dogs read each other in very subtle ways. In packs, it's like they instinctively know what each other is about to do, like a football/SAS team. It doesn't matter how we vary our leaving routine, dogs know that we are going out. I've only had German Sheperds, I taught them makaton and they just worked with me. We know that dogs can smell disease/seizures etc, so we can't say that they aren't reading every change in us, they probably just react to what suits them.

I think its tone that they understand more than actual words.
But they obviously do understand certain words... Our old family dog when i was growing up was so sharp, we started spelling out w.a.l.k. very slowly instead of saying the word and he twigged it after about 2 days. He was a rescue mixed breed.

@BashfulClam probably, ham was his favourite.

Of course..so funny

It wouldn't have done from my GS. He would have brought me the remote, without training. He read every reaction when out and responded accordingly. Him and the bloody cat tagged teamed to do whatever they wanted in the house and garden. It's really interesting watching animals work together.

I was just going to mention those, @PandaCwtch! Proof that (some) dogs AND CATS can work human language 🙂

I had a cat like this. He was brilliant, if challenging at times! My last one, though, was terribly sweet and as dense as osmium.

There is an excellent YouTube video explaining exactly why the “Bunny” videos are largely bullshit. I don’t mean the basic words - I mean the ones where the dog apparently forms sentences.

There is a vast difference between a dog learning that a particular sound - or a particular pattern of sounds - means a particular thing, and being able to understand words like “tomorrow” and “happy”.

Ours picks up bedtime in any conversation, cheese and cat. Also loop. If we say shall we do the loop( evening walk loop) she gets excited even if we’re discussing down the loop at another time. I often wonder if she wishes she could understand more and is trying to work out conversations.

Ham is every dogs favourite, so is most food though 😂

I had a friend with a very clever Schnauzer and his party trick was to bring us random things. So his owner would start with 'Bring me my glove' and he would bring the glove, then we would ask him for increasingly obscure items like 'toilet roll, tea towel, chair cushion' etc. and he had about a 90% success rate. I think many dogs understand more than we give them credit for.

Google Bunnie the talking dog.