Dogs are Masters at Reading Body Language
Dogs are Masters at Reading Body Language
Dogs are far more intuitive than we humans. They are always watching us and they instinctively recognize situations and read us like a book. They know when we are happy and they know when to leave us alone. They base ALL of their life's decisions on what reinforces their level of comfort and what satisfies their pack instincts.
New dog trainers mistakenly think their dogs listen to them all the time. They think the dog automatically knows when commands are given. The fact is that dogs may listen but they don't naturally pick up on our every word. In fact, trained dogs don't understand much of what we say. But they are very intuitive about reading and recognizing specific situations or pictures (of our body language). They are so good at this that we think they know what we are saying when in fact, they don't have a clue.
A perfect example of this is a dog that learns to sit in your kitchen. The dog can perform the sit exercise 200 times in the kitchen and you may think he has that concept of the SIT command down pat. Then you take him into your garage and say SIT and he looks at you like you are a man on the moon speaking Swahili. He acts like you have two heads and he has never heard the word SIT before.
A better example is when the dog has always been given the SIT command when you are standing in front of him in the kitchen. Simply turning your back and saying SIT results in a blank stare. Sometimes when you are kneeling down or sitting on the floor, you can say SIT and still get no result.
That is because the dog does not understand the concept of SIT. He doesn't know what you are asking him to do. You may think he knows the word SIT but what he really knows is that when he sees the picture of you standing in front of him in the kitchen, he should SIT.
So when you see a dog do this, you need to know that your dog has not yet grasped the concept of the verbal SIT command.
This is why it’s important to understand not only what we’re teaching the dogs but also how we’re teaching. Think of what unintentional cues you’re giving your dog. How are you holding your hands? When are you releasing them into the reward, did you move before or after you marked the behavior? Are you tilting your head or holding yourself a particular way? All of these things are cueing the dog and teaching them what you’re trying to impart to them.
One example I have done with clients is when teaching the dog the behavior of sit we show the dog multiple times, luring it with our hands and our body helping it understand and the dog generally, very quickly learns the behavior. Then to show the owner how important the consistency in the words we use are and how much the dogs queue off our body language I will do the same exact motion teaching the dog sit, but use the word taco. I have never had a dog not sit when I have said Taco when lowering the dog and doing the same physical motion when we had just used the word sit. We all laugh but it's a great example of how important our physical cues are to the dogs. There's nothing wrong with physically cueing your dog and it can be incredibly helpful in the learning phase to help your dog understand what you mean. That being said it is on us as the handlers and the owners to make sure that we are clear in our communication and once the dog has started learning the physical cue for a behavior to fade that out and start doing the physical cue less making sure that we are verbally marking the behavior then physically helping the dog. This ensures that the dog understands the verbal mark( sit, down, heel) and that the dog does not rely solely on a physical cue.
