Do they understand more than we think?

I would tell Noah what particular toy I wanted and he would get it for me. He would also lay his head down when Mom came up behind him with her walker and told him to put his head down - she would be able to roll the walker right over him without him raising his head.

Emma is the same - you say something to her and she knows what you are saying. She can read every mood of mine.
 
Its nice to see everyone has stories to share. I do think there is something to it, some notion of understanding that goes beyond what we realise.

To give another example,
Cadbury loves soft toys, and I regularly bring him soft toys and leave them in the living room for him.

The other week I crocheted a small tiger for my own amusement, but NOT for Cadbury. I left it on the coffee table.

Cadbury came in the next morning and spotted the tiger and picked it straight up. I told him 'drop' which he did immediately and then said that that wasn't his toy, but mine and he wasn't to touch it.

I didn't give a 'leave' command or anything.

Since that day the crochet tiger has sat on the coffee table all week and Cadbury has not attempted to touch it.
 
Dogs can understand up to 200 words, about the same as a human 2 year old. They do not understand structured sentences but they can string some words together and understand words within a sentence. So if you say "Fido go over there and pick up your ball" Fido will hear its name, may understand the word 'go' to take action and 'ball'. They also understand pointing so if you point to where 'over there' is Fido will probably 'go ball' in the direction you are pointing.

Last year I participated in a study on whether dogs understand moods (by surveying owners). The gist so far seems that dogs can understand strong emotions and emotions they see often. Certain breeds are better at emotions and the relationship with the person can also determine how well they read things.

One shame though - how many of our dogs actually know our name? I have often wondered how to teach them my name. Most people I know use the word 'mum' when they talk to my dogs, or anyone elses so they probably think mum is a generic human name. They do know the name of most of their doggie friends though.
 
My Angel (R.I.P.) knew who Mommy was.... If my Mom was out I would see her car coming and say to Angel ... Here comes Mommy... and Angel would run to the door and bark until I let her out and she would sit at the top of the steps outside for my Mom to come out of the garage.
 
When I was planning to get a dog my dream was a dog we would be so intuned with each other that no words would be needed. At the age of 9 months old I can say that Che and I well on our way, it is uncanny how well this dog reads us and understands. I do think that dogs understand more by reading our body language and mood than words itself also it is easy to teach names of toys, places and many of us unconsciously do that and am sure they are able to string words together from the long sentence.
 
Caro - both my Hamish and Noah knew me by my first name, Ronna. They knew Mom and Dad by Grandpa and Grandma due to the grandkids being around so much. Emma knows me as mother or mom.
 
*Caro said:
One shame though - how many of our dogs actually know our name? I have often wondered how to teach them my name. Most people I know use the word 'mum' when they talk to my dogs, or anyone elses so they probably think mum is a generic human name. They do know the name of most of their doggie friends though.
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Layla knows Mommy, Daddy, Auntie Colleen, Robert and Auntie Sue -- all separately!!! And of course she knows Bits, Annie and Beckon as well. :yes:
 
Saidy knows my husband by daddy and she knows our friend Sandra by name but that's about all for names.
as for a little story I normally tell saidy to "get a Saidy toy" and she grabs whatever toy she finds first and one day she comes back with one and I decide to say "no, get Saidy's favorite toy" which I had never tried before so she wonders off and comes back with the toy we have always thought of as her favorite. So somewhere along the way she must have picked up on the fact that we had called it her favorite a couple times before.
She often picks up on what a word means without us realizing it like the word medicine has become the word for treat in our house because she picked up on the fact that we would say it shortly after or before she got cheese (in which the meds were hidden) and then one day I tell my husband he should take some cold medicine and she perks up and runs over to us expecting a treat!
 
They're smart little critters. Chelsea used to have a sizeable vocabulary, but her favourite words were RUN, and DRIVE.

Not only do they listen for words, or sounds, they'll watch our body language. Chelsea used to know when we were going for a drive. I'd be around home, and THINKING of going for a drive, or a run, and Chelsea would give a Yip of Glee, and go running for the door. I had said Nothing, but, she knew. She KNEW! It took me a long time to recognize HOW she knew, but I got it. Eventually.

If I stood up from the computer, or was walking around home, and tucked my shirt in, 'Yippie! We're going somewhere!', and she'd go tearing for the door. If I didn't, we weren't going anywhere.

I know there were other signals that she watched for, but that one still brings a smile.

One other time, Chelsea was in the back yard, it was raining, me on one end of her leash, she on the other, and she Would not come in after finishing her business. Just stood there and looked at me, and no coaxing from me would get her to budge. Finally, I said quietly, 'Ok, we'll go for a drive', and before I turned to head for the car, she'd beat it past me and was pulling me to the car at the end of a 5m leash.

Oh the fun we have with them. :biggrin2:
 
I have the greatest, "boy do they know more than we think" story. Don't get mad though, because it is not about a sheltie. It's about a retired greyhound racing dog I used to have.

The first day I left Divine alone in my house I came home to find my salt & pepper shaker collection, normally displayed nicely on my breakfast nook window sill, in a pile underneath the diningroom table. None were broken, but ALL were there. I went into this long dissertation with her about how those were Mommy's toys and her toys were in the basket, etc., etc., etc. I put all the S&P shakers back on the window sil and promptly forgot about it.

Later that evening I was sitting on the floor in the livingroom and Divine was there with me, chewing on one of her toys. She got up, went into the breakfast nook, got a S&P shaker and promptly dropped it in my lap, as if to say, "Here's a toy for you to play with."

She never touched the S&P shakers again, always remembering those were Mommy's toys!!

Meggie never ceases to amaze me. She knows which is "the blue one," when I tell her to get the particular ball I prefer using for fetch. She knows what, "get your brother" means when Cooper is too far into the yard to hear me yell for him. She goes running to him, barking and telling him to get back into the house. She also knows what "let's get the mail," means and goes straight for the mail box. I swear if she were taller she could get it for me. haha

Oh, and my little cocapoo, Honey knew what it meant when my ex would tell her to "go wake up sister." She'd go straight into my daughter room, jump on her bed and wake her up.
 
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