who clearly understood speech incredibly well. Somehow I am not surprised. Dogs have been with us for how many thousands of years? We've been speaking to them that whole time, and I'm going to guess that all this time, the dogs who understood speech a little better wound up reproducing more.

Personally, what I like best about dogs is that almost every single one thinks that this human he has just met is his new best friend.

Oh, and I'm a cat person, but I love the dogginess of dogs.

All I need to do is give my Dobe a certain 'look' and she settles down immediately.

(Sure wish my Sons had that capability when they were little. )

If you look at a dog's ears they seem to behave independently from each other. Each ear acts like its a separate radar dish. You can actually watch them rotate and move to get sounds better. You can also see this in their noses. I am a very visual person and I was always fascinated by the senses of dogs'.

Of course their unconditional love is the greatest gift they have given humans.

ball. treat.food.

holy fucking shit how the fuck did you get into the garbage when I blocked the cupboard with a chair!!!!

you know all the simple things.

She can hear louder sounds like clapping my hands if I am close to her. It's amazing how well she has learned hand signals so quickly. She also responds to certain sequences I clap my hands in.

People were scared to death of him until they figured out that was his "Come here and pet me bark"
that he used 99.99% of the time, then he had another new friend for life.

when talking to ourselves. Otherwise he would go ape shit. Then the bastard learned how to spell.

only you have to convince them it's in their best interest to listen.

Case in point: one of my rescues only seemed to understand "no" until I tried Spanish to ask him if he wanted his dinner or other typically cat oriented things. That cat never learned a single word of English. He reacted dramatically to Spanish.

I just considered myself lucky he didn't learn one of the native languages.

It makes sense. Everything needs to learn a library of sounds to be able to distinguish prey from predator. In addition, some animals, most notably prairie dogs, have a fairly well developed language, describing humans as sex, color of clothing, and whether they look like they are armed. I don't know if they share the FOXP2 gene necessary for language with mice, alligators, songbirds, chimpanzees....and genus homo.

I could just say, "Go to the kitchen," or "Go to the family room," and she would go.

Miss her so much!

But I never should have used the word 'cookies' for dog biscuits.

Or say 'the t-word' for treat, 'c-word' for car....and I'm convinced we're s-a-n-e.

My dog used to immediately snap to attention if any of us said the words “rabbits” or “squirrels” or “cats”. Or, when I would eat and he would sit beside me getting fed, when all the food was gone I would hold my empty hands up and say “all gone”, he would growl and walk away.

“Why do I hold my hands out like a blackjack dealer when the treats are all gone?”

I felt seen.

She can also be willful and stubborn. If there is something she doesn't want to do she pretends she doesn't hear or doesn't understand.

that would respond to non-verbal communication. I could use thoughts to have her come to me from a different room or to sit/stay, lay down.

She'd get off the couch, pad into the bedroom, look up at me as if to say, "what do you want now idiot?". I've missed her for 50 years.

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