Can dogs be bilingual? - Germany

Lots of people with dogs here, so maybe someone can help me out... We want to adopt a dog and while I'd prefer a puppy, we found one thats 2-3 yrs old that we love, but I'm just wodnering if he'll be able to learn English commands? Also, what about his name...do we have to keep the name he has now..will it confuse him if we started calling him somethign else?

Depends how smart the dog is! As long as the name isn't too radically different he should be fine. As for commands Sitzt and sit are similar enough to start with and if all else fails you can learn the German and use both commands at the same time until they understand both. A dog can pretty much learn anything given the right encouragement/treats - it might take a while. But it's doable.

Why can't you learn German? It is not like the dog knows more than 20 words or so.

My Jack Russell understands both languages pretty well but can't speak either one worth a shit.

We successfully trained our dog to be bilingual by using both commands at the same time during training. He then associated both commands with the task at hand, so we could use either one. But he was a pretty smart dog, too.

Ok good to know thanks. And I do speak German, but since we pretty much talk English at home I figured it made most sense to use English with the dog aswell...

I've never understood it.

Germans often say "Platz" to their dog... but I swear it means "Explode!"

you can change the name- it doesn't have to be close.

Yes, dogs can learn commands in various languages. If you think about they already are bilingual learning whatever human language you teach since that's not their native language.
Don't use both commands at the same time. Take the one it already knows and say it after. Say the unknown first pause a bit (count of 2-3) then use the known.

My Jacks are quadralingual. They know English, German, Sign and Woof.

If Police Dogs imported into UK can retrain to a new language then I'm sure yours could too.

ditto here (english, some german, woof, and 'sign' as in hand signals)

I can understand the concerns about the name. If the name you have chosen is a simple one than I don't see a problem. I wanted to call my scotty Mr. MacGregor LOL, but seeing his shy nature, and his reaction when I first called him that, I stuck with his given name, Sunny.
As for languages, they learn pretty quickly, I wouldn't worry about that, and English and German words are very similar, as for the fun words, they will learn them fast, never told Sunny "Spazieren gehen", but after just one time telling him "go bye bye?", he learned it very fast.
My 2 babies speak German, French & English

Too funny! That is what my sister named their scotty...MacGregor.

An American friend of mine moved to Germany with her golden retriever and then trained her again in German (platz, sitz, etc). I don't think you'll have a problem.

My cat is bilingual too. However, 'RAUS!' and 'OUT!' probably sound a lot alike to a cat.

Since our dog understood walk too well, we started to talk about taking the dog for a banana. Within a few weeks whenever he heard banana he got all excited and went to fetch his lead. Yes they can easily learn new words.

I don't think dog needs to know what Kreisverwaltungsreferat means.

When I was in my early teens we had a cairn terrier. He was crazy about polos (the mint, not the car).

Over time he could he learned how to spell the word backwards and forwards.

Of course he couldn't spell the word as such be he learned that the sounds p o l o and o l o p meant there were mints around.

He even perfected opening a womans handbag (zip, clasp...) to get at what was inside.

He even had a feeling for how many mints were in a packet. If the giver of the mints ate one and he didnt see he would sit there for ages, then jump up to find it. After sniffing the persons breath he would snort and run off.

If he saw the person eat the mint, after all were gone he just left.

Could never be sure if he could actualy count or not but as a test one day I ate teo mints, one he saw, the other he didnt. he jumped up to find the other mint.

If you take enough time your dog will learn what the new sounds mean, dogs are not stupid.

Some scientists put a dogs ability to understand at the same level as a small child (taken from tests on object recognition and retrieval).

Like children, when it comes to smoething they want to do or eat dogs learn very quickly.

When my dog came to Germany, she picked up my husbands family's German commands straight away. Dogs don't so much always remember all the words that come with the commands, but also the actions and tones in which you say them. I often use hand signals with commands, so literally I don't have to say 'sit down' or 'give me paw' anymore-she just will if I use hand signals. Treats and patience help also! But if the dog is already previously trained even in German, it's not going to be a problem at all.

Similarly, we have to avoid the chocolate word in all its forms, abbreviations and spellings.
But dogs have good taste as well as linguistic skills; Cadbury's Dairy Milk, Lindt and Suchard set the tail going like a fan on high speed; that Milka stuff just gets a disdainful sniff!

Our (presumably) German dog adopted us as a stray of about 6 or 7 months old. He studiously ignores commands in any language.

I've had good results using either German or English commands with dogs. If they're semi-trained in either language, they tend to pick up the other language really fast.

When I get to Texas I'm going to get a dog from the shelter there. A young one, but not a pup. I will "re-train" the dog to only respond to commands in German even though my German wife will remain in Germany. I'm really looking forward to having a dog again for the first time in about 25 years.

Chocolate is a poison for dogs, I don't mean not healthy, it actually poisons them.

Thats true, chocolate is poisonous to dogs.

This howvere never stopped my old dog from stealing the stuff when ever possible.

He also liked lager.

I would keep the dogs name the same unless its something stupid or silly. In which case you would have to ask yourself why you gave the dog the name in the first place (unless your dog is called adolf or anhter name associated with the nazi party that is...)

cb6dba- why keep the dog's name the same?
It doesn't matter. The name is learned super fast, especially if used/taught correctly. Also a lot of shelter dogs don't respond to the shelter name anyway.

My granny was a poodle trainer (don't scoff, poodles are about as intelligent as dogs get!) and I remember one afternoon about 40 years ago when she took me out to the back yard obstacle course and showed me how the poodles reacted to hand-signs only. If you use the German commands with a certain gesture (as suggested above) take to replacing them - one at a time - with English commands. Chances are your dog will quickly catch on and obey the English commands without the gesture.
As to the name - why change it? Our cat came ready-made with the name Emily, she reacted to it so we didn't re-name her. Respect your pets' acheivements.

That also didn't stop our German Shepard from eating an entire chocolate cake as a puppy, or a sink full of defrosting pork chops for that matter.

Sarabyrd- yes. dogs learn best with hand signals because that's how they communicate naturally- body language.
Don't use the hand and voice command at the same time when introducing a new one (generally going from hand to voice) first give the unknown (in this situation voice) and then a pause and then the hand signal. If you give both at once then it'll take longer since, as with humans, the dog tunes into what it knows and ignores what it does not.

Joey now understands basic commands in three languages. He came to us from Turkey, so already had the basic Turkish sit/stay/down etc. Then I started teaching him English, and at the dog school we did everything in German. So not only can dogs be bilingual, but tri! If I get bored then I might start him on Ukrainian just for the heck of it. I even use both common North American and European hand signals, which can be different (eg "sit")

Somewhere I have a video url from YouTube showing a gal doing obedience in English/German/French all in the same session. I'll see if I can find the link and post it here.

it's really not that amazing that the dog can learn commands in different languages. To them it's all the same and just knowing that a certain sound or movement means one thing and that another sound or movement means another.
Same with hand signals. People ask which signal means what. I say use whatever you want and recommend it be something than can be easily done and remembered. (obviously if you're going into show obedience then i wouldn't recommend flipping your dog your middle finger as a hand signal or something).

yep... there really is no one command word or hand signal standard in any language though there are commonly used ones. In fact, I met one guy back in Canada who trains guard dogs, and he has his own unique set of commands. So if anyone were to try to tell his dogs to bark, attack, bite or even "get"... the dogs wouldn't respond because those aren't the words they are trained to follow. Sounds quite logical to me.

Thanks for all the info! Good to know we have some dog experts here, I'm sure I'll be needing some more tips once it gets closer to actully getting the dog (it'll be the end of next month)
And as for the name... his name right now is Larry and I just don't like that name and can't imagine living with a Larry for the next 10-15 years so I want to name him somethign cuter.

My pitbull responds well to both English and Japanese commands so it should be no problem. It might confuse him at first but he'll know all the words eventually. Dogs are fast learners

Nah it means "take your place" basically. "Platz" can be used for both place and explode, but then it would be "MarienExplode" or "I'm so full I'm going to place".

On the topic of dogs, we've had dogs in our family since I can remember, and living in Australia, we spoke mostly English at home. My Dad's Dad used to train his dogs in Germany and this carried on to my Dad, who then trained all our dogs. Our dogs were trained in German but they understood (if thats the correct term) English as well. it's just a matter of associating the old (German) word with the new (English) word, and a few treats if they get it right. And you can actually get doggie chocolate that is good for them and a treat. Well you can here, not sure if it's available in vet stores in Germany.

My dog raises his right paw up to head level when I say "sieg heil". If I say this 3 times, he raises his paw three times.
Suprisingly, this is actually viewed with great amusement amongst my German friends.

He responds to commands in German and English but also ignores both when it suits him.

Dogs can't understand the full semantic meaning of words/terms in any language. The sound and the gestures are important. Shout angrily at your dog "My darling" and he/she would be scared. Speak softly and tenderly "come to me you rotten stupid bastard" and the dog would enjoy your command...

Try 'Come here Blondie' . For more emphasis make you voice grumpy, let your hands tremble and put on a little small beard right under your nose.

I bought my dog from the pound. All dogs there are imported from Spain. Every dog there was calm and pretty obedient. We now have 3 from the same pound. All with different owners I might add. Ours was called Violetta, which we shortened to Vio.She is the greatest mutt in the whole of Germany, and is multi-lingual to boot... German, English, Spanish.
Dogs don't understand the spoken word, but they do respond to love and affection, as do we all.

They respond to food.
No seriously, experiments prove that dogs primarily respond to gestures, because it's in their nature. Canines communicate by movements, postures and stuff -there are hundreds of things to express with the slightest movements (movements we would never be aware of since we don't have a dog's sense). Even shifting one's body weight by a very small degree incorporates a message for the dog. So if you want to teach your pet something without getting it confused, stop screaming and milling around.

my mom brought home a toy poodle belonging to a south american family. After 4 months of trying to retrain her, I finally asked a Spanish speaking friend some basic commands and was surprised at how well trained the dog actually was. She refused to obey any command in English. She was a very clingy dog and I was very grateful when I learned how to say go away in Spanish and could finally read a newspaper without her sitting on top of it.

it's important to pay attention to your intonation and body language.
It's very easy when to get frustrated with a dog when you feel it should know something and 'isn't listening'. Once you get frustrated then it's obvious to the dog via how you are communicatign with it.
Also, just because your told a dog is trained doesn't mean it'll listen to you. The dog needs to be worked with by different people and in different settings.
I could tell someone my dog knows x, y, and z and then they take him and ask him to do something in navajo and think well, he knew the command in English so he should get it rather quickly... it doesn't work that way. He can learn the command in Navajo quickly, but you still need to work with him and associate things to the new command.

Maybe is trilingual. English, German, French. Ask crusoe if you don't believe me.

Garibaldi- Maybe is probably quadrilingual (is that the term?) since she (he?) also speaks Canine too

Maybe. But probably only because it's maybe.

If you really want to find out if your dog actually understands the command word in any language, then here's a very simple test. Stand in front of your dog, and make a real effort not to move anything at all except for your lips. No hand gestures, leaning, shifting weight, or even facial expression changes. Then tell your dog to sit (or some other command that the dog already knows well) and see what happens.

In a test done a few years ago, 24 puppies were trained to sit using a hand signal, and a beep. Then they were asked for a bunch of sits using only the sound or the hand gesture in a random mixed order. 23 of the 24 puppies responded better to the hand signal, while only one did equally well with both. Not surprisingly there were some breed differences evident. Border Collies and Aussies got 37 out of total 40 possible visual sit signals right, and only 6 out of 40 possible sound commands. The Beagles and Miniature Schnausers got 32 of 40 visual sits, and responded to ZERO of the sound cues. Dalmatians did respond to some sound commands while Cavalier King Charles Spaniels were fairly equal in responding to either visual or sound cues.

Source: The Other End of the Leash, (amazon.de) by Patricia B. McConnell, page 5

Bipa- i love it! Quoting (or using as a source) Tricia!

Another test to make sure you're not acutally moving is be on the other side of a door or around a corner. You either station it so you can 'peek' on your dog. or have someone else there (with this you would have to make sure they are ignoring the dog and the dog has attention on you via noises you're making before giving the command).

Speaking of animals and movement/body language you can check out Clever Hans and the horse that "counted".

Here's your chance to vote for a bilingual dog and to try to help some rescue dogs!
(the winner of the contest wins $10,000 for a rescue/shelter. this voting perdiod is to advance to the finals and the chance to win money for a rescue i'm part of- Midwest Border Collie Resce- MWBCR)

Hi!
Thank you to everyone who voted last time; sadly we did not win… didn’t even get honorable mention! We decided to try one last time (and it’s the last voting period) Could you please vote again…. Please? Also please pass this on to anyone and everyone you know-pretty please!

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