My friend came over one day and asked me to go fishing, I said sure, I gathered all my stuff and could not find my lab. After about 10 minutes of looking I finally found him over by the ditch, digging worms.
Yea, the same thing happened to me. Found mine at the fly-tying bench. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> M
Lately I've been keeping my black lab out of the bedroom due to a snoring issue.
Last night he woke me up at 3ish am by nuzzling me, and started towards the door to go potty. I stumbled to the door in the dark and I realized that the dog was no longer with me. Confused I headed back to bed to find him curled up on my bed with his head on my pillow!!
I had to give him credit for being that clever, so he got to sleep on the bed.
The hotel in Kotzebue in mid 70's didn't (doesn't?) allow dogs in the room, so I tied my first Lab, Tuvaaq, out in the alley to a lumber pile, then requested a room that overlooked him. On reaching the room I opened the window and called to him so he would know where I was staying. He began barking loudly - to be let in, no doubt - and I told him "Shhhhhh!".
He didn't stop barking immediately, just went to a "whisper". We overnighted there a couple other times after that, and he never again barked loudly - always "whisper barked" while tied out back at the hotel.
I also figured out where the sneaky back door was - and never got caught at it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
My labs were/are pretty good at grasping spoken commands and gestures: if they were in the mood at the time and not distracted by children, food or the chance that children with food might show up at any moment. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />
The one I have now does exactly the same thing our last one did, if one of us says "Go bye byes". They both went ballistic at the thought of a truck ride.
Both also went into the spin and yowl mode at the sight of me rootin' out guncases, etc., figured that also meant they were going for a ride. The big dummy we have now is pretty good at figuring out what a scowl means too, when he screws up.
As the saying goes, the more I'm around people, the more I like dogs.
If three or more people think you're a dimwit, chances are at least one of them is right.
Our family has had quite a few dogs over the years,all understood to a certain extent but did not always mind you. We now have a female Border Collie that has to be the smartest dog I've ever beem around. She understands words, voice comands,and hand comands. She minds better than most kids I've been around, you tell her to do something and she does it. To me she is amazing,I could go on and on.
In addition to the usual commands. my Springer knows:
supper (all food) biscuit treat car ride go for a walk bunny (her toy) bone sock (loves to steal them and carry them around) hunt birds
The funniest thing is that she really tunes in to my son's dog's name, Gracie. She reacts instantly if we even use it in a sentence. They live about a three hour drive from here, and she loves to go visit. All I have to say is "Do you want to go for a car ride and see Gracie? and she's ready to go. The smartest dog I ever had was my first Springer, born in 1965. It was just dumb luck on my part. You could go through a menu, and she'd bark at the foods she liked best. Chicken and cheese were her favorites. Dogs are amazing.
Paul
Stupidity has its way, while its cousin, evil, runs rampant.
My dog (wife's, really) understand quite a lot of words and body language. If I get too close to my wife the dog barks at me, but shuts up when i yell at her to be quiet...well, not always <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
She understands: food, cookie, treat, sit, and just about anything we say. She can also tell time: She is by the front window at 5:00 PM when I get home, looking out for my car on the driveway, as well as in the kitchen near her bowl by breakfast time, lunch, and dinner. If I put hand-lotion on my hands or put my shoes on, she barks because she thinks that I am leaving. My wife has to spell words to me because the dog understands!
She likes our food instead of hers, so we feed her herring, tuna, mandarin orange (from the can), we cook stew for her, and since she does not like to chew vitamins, we coat the pills with peanut butter (she loves that). She also likes, string beans, potatoes, green peas, rice, and a little bit of coffee with cream.
BUT a bad thing is that when she farts sometimes she stinks like I do (or maybe I stink like she does?).
My mom and dad's first black lab was one of the smartest dogs I've met. She had some fabulous intuition, understood the spoken word, but developed her own sign language as well. She would fetch a stick at the beach seemingly without end. When she had her fill, she would fetch the stick one "last" time, drop it at my mother's feet and proceed to pee all over it. Literal translation? "Pizz on it, I've had enough of your dumb game!" Needless to say she got the point across and the game was over! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> M
Dogs, if they're sharp, can rival a 3 yr old human child with their ability to understand language. I talk to my dogs as I would a 3 yr old child, and I get amazing results. They regulary show they can understand complex sentence structures, indirect references, and conditional phrases. Lily has been with us only a year, but she has picked up on it.
The best example I can give is what happened a few years ago. I got up on a Sunday morning. KYHillChick was still in bed with Barney the Wonderdog. Both were watching the TV.
Without any other cues, I said, "Would you prefer a bagel or a breakfast sandwich?" Girlfriend responded that she wanted a bagel.
The dog responded by leaping from the bed and running to the door. Barney had deduced that the exchange had connoted a ride in the car.
My dogs watch television and can sit enraptured by a torrid film-noir classic. Barney gets really upset watching the Emergency Room Vet show on Animal Channel, and I regularly get woken up by his turning on the back-to-back Lassie episodes that come on starting at 4 AM on the cable. (Yes, that's right, he uses the remote!) Barney watches Foxnews, baseball and football, and just about any nature show. His absolute favorites are the hunting shows on the Outdoor Channel. We sit together and watch. He barks at the deer, and chases them into the other room when they run off screen. When he sees hunting dog shows, he stands at the foot of the bed and barks like sports fan cheering on his favorite competitor.
We have to be careful. Both dogs have decided that "Ride in the Car" means they'll be riding in the back seat of the truck. "Ride in the Back" means they ride in the back of the truck under the cap. If we mix it up by mistake, we have a heck of a time getting them to go get in the back of the truck. In this case, the dogs made the distinction, not us.
If I let the dogs out at the farm early in the morning and say nothing, they will disappear into darkness, and we won't see them until breakfast. If I admonish them with "Stay close," however, they go out and do their business and come back. They taught themselves that, and it comes in handy when the coyotes are about.
I save commands for serious business. When I say "Sit" "Stay" "Halt", etc. it's usually picked up on immediately. What I do in normal situations is phrase things like a question. "Does the dog want to get up?" "Does the dog want to watch me in the basement?" "Does the dog want dinner?" The dog will respond as he or she sees fit. The interrogative gives the sentence less of a threat, and it allows the dog to make choices. Usually the dog will sit, come, or whatever, but you can see the wheels are turning.
I repeat new words or concepts several times.
When the dog responds appropriately to complex phrases, I give acknowledgement by saying things like. "Yes, the dog got off the bed. The dog got off the bed."
Verbal admonishments are done as insults, delivered in triplicate. "Foodstealer! Foodstealer! Foodstealer!" or "NoisyDog! NoisyDog! NoisyDog!" The dog cowers like I've got a stick in my hand.
"Too close!" means you're standing too close, please go away. "TooClose! TooClose! TooClose! " means you've invaded my space, and you're a bad dog. "Is the dog too close?" means the you're starting to invade my space and I'm asking you to rethink what you're doing. Usually the latter is all it takes. When the dog does the appropriate thing, I respond with "Yes, the dog got too close, and moved away." Later, I can use something like "If the dog comes close, I will give him a treat, "and the dog gets up and comes over to me.
Barney just started barking in the other room. I went in, and he was watching "The History of English" on the History International Channel.
Barney had one of my T-shirts on. Lily, our beagle, got a pink hooded sweatshirt for Christmas, and has been living in it for two weeks. We got it for her, because she lost all the hair on her flanks when we first got her, and she was perpetually cold. She was a rescue. Anyhow, Lily has been roaming around in her pink sweatshirt, and Barney was acting out. Yesterday KYHillChick realied Barney was jealous, and put one of my white T-Shirts on him, and the bad behavior ceased.
So there's my dog, wearing my T-Shirt, barking at the screen. The only thing I saw was a bunch of people in Singapore in a shopping mall, while the narrator droned on about how English is being adopted in that city. Whatever it was, he was barking like he wanted whatever had got his attention to come and play. Who knows?
I asked him, "What does the dog want?"
He went over to the speaker and stuck his nose into the woofer, looked at me and then came back.
"I don't understand the dog." I said. "I'm sorry."
Love it! Judging by the yellow stain on Barney the Wonderdog's t-shirt (notice I didn't say yours), I will assume this was a "sacrificial" t-shirt, designed for behavior modification, specifically, sibling rivalry. Laundering it most likely will have to be a strategically planned event. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> M
I'd missed that entirely. He somehow got the knot that was holding it up worked out. In the dark, this morning, we missed that entirely. The flash brought it out though. KYHillChick just took it off him, and Barney is out roaming around the back yard now, sans shirt.
No, that was an error.
Ooops! I guess we'll have to make some adjustments. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> Or perhaps get him shirt tailored to his dog dimensions.
