Quote: Janice Jarman

Jenni, what you said about Caleb and the tennis ball/stick. That sure does strike a chord with me. I cannot even remember how many times I've spoken to CeeCee or Harley in a conversational tone of voice...no command...and had them do what I suggested. Example, "CeeCee, it sure is chilly in here, why don't you go lay down in your sunbeam?". She looks at me, cocks her head, and then strolls on over to the beam and flops down. "Harley, the bunney went behind the bush by the bird feeder" There goes Harley, straight for that particular bush. And on and on.

Having conversations with dogs is a wonderful way of communication with them. I've always talked to my dogs and the more I talk, the more they understand what I'm saying. It seems they become able to start understanding how to put words together. Granted there usually are words in my sentences that are familiar to the dog, but I purposely interject those words in differently formed sentences, at the beginning, middle or end.

It's so nice to converse with your dog. One sentence Lear understands is "we're going to have to stop playing soon if you don't behave". (He starts to get a bit rowdy, still being a puppy and pushing how far he can take his rascally self.) When he hears that sentence or something like it, he calms down.

They understand "us", so much more in tune with what we're thinking and feeling than people are. Lear's current trainer saw that Lear is very sensitive to me, and I had seen that. It was cool that she saw it too.

My Dutch seems like he can identify people in a room. If he has a toy and I say, "I don't want to play go give it to _______" he goes to that person no matter who is in the room.

Or I will give him a choice of "Do you want the tug or the ball today?" and he will go to his box and get what he wants to play with. He will actually dig around in the box to find either the ball or the tug and leave everything else alone.....unless I ask him about a different set of toys like a stuffed toy or an kong.....then he leaves the tugs and the orbees alone and finds one of those......it is definitely something to think about.

You guys reminded me of an article I read about Chuck Eisenmann and his dog London, the star of the TV show "The Littlest Hobo". London had a vocabulary of over 4000 words and Chuck maintains his dogs are "educated", not trained.

Here is the article:


A thinking dog's man

By Arthur Fuller, TV Guide, December 29, 1979


In a small clearing in a woods, the crew is midway into a Littlest Hobo shoot, an episode called "Target For Terror". In this scene, the terrorist leader (Peter Jobin) is supposed to search through the long grass for Toro, the German shepherd-turned-actor who stars in the television series. Toro's trainer, Chuck Eisenmann, a gruffly, likable man of 60, talks to his star:

"I want you to hide here in the grass, Toro. He'll be coming across like this," says Chuck, scanning the field with a pointed finger. "Keep an eye on him, but don't let him see you."

Chuck moves out of the way, the camera rolls, Jobin moves through the long grass, gun in hand, eyes full of menace, and Toro digs in, rising briefly, then ducking low again- credibly, as if he truly thought his life in danger.

A four-door sedan stands in the driveway, the driver and rear passenger doors open. For this scene, the dog must go into the car through one door, pass over the seat, and exit the vehicle by the other door. Eisenmann hems and haws, surveying the sedan.

"No way Toro can do it," he tells the director. "His body's too long; he'll get caught. It'll have to be Bo." Chuck turns to the blanket where the five magnificent German shepherds recline. He summons the smallest dog, who prances forward, looking like a young actor sensing his big opportunity. Chuck crouches to speak to him. "Bo, I want you to run up to the car, go in this door, jump over the seat, and go out there." The camera rolls, and Bo receives his cue and heads for the sedan. In, over, out- flawlessly. "Print it," says the director.

Events whose drama is somewhat less than gripping? Perhaps one must have tried (and failed) to train a dog to fully appreciate the breadth of accomplishment displayed by the five dogs who together fill the role of CTV's The Littlest Hobo. Then, too, we have been spoiled. Animals, as Walt Disney had a hunch, are almost guaranteed box office successes. The original Rin Tin Tin was one of the silent film era's biggest drawing cards, and ever since, we have been knee-deep in animals: lions, donkeys, horses (talking and non-talking), bears (koala and grizzly), porpoises, chimpanzees, birds, and, of course, dogs (several Lassies and Rin Tin Tins, not to mention the original Littlest Hobo). We have also grown more sophisticated, aware that what appears on the screen to a single animal may in fact have been several, cleverly edited.

But as Chuck Eisenmann sees it, that is a small problem compared with the major one facing The Littlest Hobo- the quality of the scripts. There is, strangely, no communication whatsoever between Eisenmann and the series' writers- and if they do not realize what the dogs can do, there is no chance that the audience will so-realize. As a result, the star of the series is shunted to the periphery.

Chuck shakes his head, removes his baseball cap, and ruffles his hair. "Toro and Bo are using about 75 percent of their grey matter, where most dogs, like people, use only 10 percent. They're capable of truly remarkable things. Unlike a conditioned dog, they can even deal with an unfamiliar situation. But the kind of thing we've been shooting in the past couple of weeks, the producers might be better off with a dog conditioned to come, sit, lie down. In one script," he recalls with a contemptuous chuckle, "there were 37 barks and whimpers. 'London barks his approval. London looks intelligent.' What the hell am I supposed to do to improve that?"

Precisely, what can Chuck's dogs do? To illustrate, Chuck arranged a demonstration. It was an eye-opener.

The dogs understand Chuck in English, French, and German. They have, Chuck claims, vocabularies of up to 5,000 words. At one point, Chuck said to Toro, "There are two musical instruments in this room. One has strings and the other is a d-r-u-m. Show them to me in that order." Toro rose from his place and nuzzled the guitar, then the small hand drum.

The dogs can distinguish colors. "London," said Chuck, "show me a flower the same color as this man's shirt." London touched the flower with his nose.

"There are four men here," Chuck said to Toro, "all in blue shirts and blue pants. One of them is wearing a blue velour shirt. Which one?" Toro approached the man in the velour shirt. "One of us is not wearing sneakers," the man in velour said to Chuck. "Could the dog pick that out?" Chuck nodded. "Toro, what was that man talking about?" Toro looked at the four men and approached the only man in kung-fu slippers, nudging his toe. Chuck gave to the dog no command, only a question that contained no information. Toro had to have been listening to the conversation. Understanding it. One begins to realize the extent of Chuck's frustration.

Chuck has been training dogs foe 34 years. In 1958, he made the feature film, The Littlest Hobo. Beginning in 1962, he spent three years making the original television series (also produced in Canada). Two more feature films followed, but for most of the past 14 years, Chuck has concentrated on live performances. He has raised, over the years, 17 phenomenal dogs, and found the time to author two heretical training manuals. For if Eisenmann's dogs are extraordinary, they are less so than his theories.

The basic mistake of most people, he says, is to shower their dog with love rather than respect. "A dog should be housebroken within 24 hours," Chuck states flatly. "Without newspapers or any of that. How? Observation. When it's time, the dog will let you know. Not in English, of course, but you'll understand. You have to be ready, and show him where you would like him to go. If you're too busy, he'll go on the British India rug, and wonder why you get mad. You must observe. Respect your dog's intelligence. You can cripple a young dog's development, just by thinking too little of him."

Obedience skills, says Chuck, can hurt a dog more than they can help. "You can't bring a dog into a room full of dogs and expect it to learn. While you're forcing its behind down and saying, 'Sit," the dog's mind is on the behind of the next dog. You can't get through to him. Worse. You'll close his mind by insisting. Convince a dog that you think he's stupid, and he will surely oblige you."

Respect your dog's mind, and challenge it. Those are the pillars of the Eisenmann method. He raises dogs in the way that enlightened parents raise children. He has no use for the leash, nor for physical punishment. At about six weeks, Chuck begins training his dogs, conditioning them to come, sit, stay, pick it up, and bring it. At the outset, Chuck's attitude is more hopeful than demanding, and he is careful not to confuse the dog with too much information. As quickly as possible, though, he abandons the sacred cow of single-word commands in favor of more elaborate requests. "Sit down," evolves into, "If you don't mind, would you please come over here and sit down?"- forcing the dog to listen to a stream of words before coming close to those that he can understand. He talks to his dogs constantly, pointing to things, spelling words out for them, offering other words for the same things. "I choose my moments, though," says Chuck. "I wait until I have the dog's attention. If the dog's mind is receptive, you get in."

At seven or eight months, serious teaching begins- in two 15-minute periods per day, always at the same time, so that the dog will perceive the difference between class time and the remainder of the day. In class, what Chuck says goes, while outside, the dogs are free to follow their own avenues of inquiry. All the while, Chuck observes, allowing his dogs to teach him, challenging their strengths instead of their weaknesses.

"Too often, dogs are blamed for the inadequacies of their owners," Chuck says, smiling philosophically. "A dog must be educated to live in human society, and we must hold the owners responsible for the actions of the animals. We shouldn't be licencing dogs. We should be licencing owners."


Since reading that article, I have tried to teach my Aussie/Lab cross, Emma, to distinguish her toys by name. She still cannot do this, but we are currently learning competition obedience. I have found that Emma learns my gestures much more readily than words. Her main job is to keep my foster dogs entertained and exercised when it is play time. She takes this job seriously.

It's really cool for me to read stories from you all about what your dogs can do and understand.

Wow - thank you for posting that article. It's great to hear that what was to me just a way of communicating with my dogs that I used to think others would laugh at (so I kept it under my hat) has actually been tried and proven by a professional for many years.

That guy is so right on.

I especially like this quote: "The basic mistake of most people, he says, is to shower their dog with love rather than respect." I have a real hard time with people who don't respect their dogs. Some methods of correction are just downright disrespectful to a dog and should be abolished immediately. That's my soapbox...

And this one: "Respect your dog's intelligence. You can cripple a young dog's development, just by thinking too little of him." Amen to that one. We have the privilege of having the smartest creatures next to humans actually living in our homes with us, willing creatures, loyal and kind and true to those they love. As a child I used to think dogs were smarter and better than a lot of people - in all these years I've seen nothing to change my view.

I do pull out my soapbox when it comes to dogs.

I'd like to add one caveat to that Chuck Eisenmann article. I was reading a book recently (I think it was "How to Speak Dog" by Stanely Coren)and the author mentioned Eisenmann and his dogs. He watched Eisenmann's dogs really do all of those things, but concluded that it was the Clever Hans effect (the horse who could answer any question as long as he could watch someone who knew the answer). The dogs were exceptionally good at observing body language (such as eye movement). From this they could determine the point or object he wanted them to go to or interact with. Once they had reached it there were only a very limited number of actions that could be associated with it, considering its size (they might be able to pick some actions out of his sentences: point at it, pick it up, retrieve it, climb on it, jump over it, etc.) The real evidence for the effect however, was that the dogs could generally respond to Eisenmann in languages and words that he had never used before. The dogs also sometimes made mistakes like pointing at an incorrect object near, but not similar to, the real one. But since it was close, the audience didn't usually notice.

http://www.chanda-leah.com/trick_list.html
I saw this link on Leerburg a while ago and while I don't know anything about this dog, I would guess that some of this dog's tricks (the math, alphabet, and calender ones specifically) could be attributed to the same thing. It kind of makes me wonder whether their claim to "over 1000 tricks" is entirely valid.

Nevertheless both cases are still is pretty amazing and must require a pretty incredible bond between dog and handler. Just because a dog doesn't understand human sentences (and I don't really think they do), doesn't mean he doesn't know what you meant.

My parent's lab mix (whom I consider sweet, sensitive, and not overly brainy) and I play a game where he tries to guess which hand I have a treat in. If he guesses wrong and I put my hands behind my back before letting him guess again, he will usually keep guessing the same hand over and over until he gets it right (meaning I feel sorry for him). However, if I don't put them behind my back and let him guess again he will switch his guess immediately. Though it's certainly not spectacular I think it's a clear example of him using deductive logic. Until very recently that would have really surprised scientists.

Caleb and Lear both sound really cool

It's not important that a dog understand every word in a sentence. That's not really the point (at least it wasn't my point). It's more that they have the ability to understand us. That includes body language of course and at times previously known words interjected in a sentence.

Sure it's something that can be explained away. But since communication with dogs isn't a science, there's no way to prove just how much a dog can understand of what we say, and it can't be explained away scientifically (like so many other things). The fact that they pick up on other nuances as well as words doesn't invalidate the intelligence level or communication level. In fact, it adds to and confirms the depth of a dog's ability to communicate, ie he's using his brain to problem solve.

Like people, every dog has a different intelligence level. Couple any level with a willing dog and who knows how far they can go toward a deeper level of communication?

I've always been fascinated by my dogs' minds. Digger always seems like he can read my mind. He learns commands faster than I can teach them and forms connections I didn't even think of until I notice that he's figured it out. He's also very good with directional stuff - I couldn't for the life of me teach him to pick out a certain toy just by verbal command, but I can have him go for whatever I'm pointing at.

Most impressive to me is his understanding of my moods - notably if I'm very sad. A year or so ago he was having serious anxiety attacks that were depriving me of sleep, that required $250/month medication to keep him calm, and that wasn't going away with any of the training we were doing. One night I just broke down crying because I was afraid this was him losing his mind; and he stopped the hysterics, leaned on me and licked up my tears...and then fell asleep next to me. He also never had the panic attacks again. Maybe just coincidence, but every time I'm sad, he stops what he's doing and leans up against me.

The other thing that cracks me up is when Digger watches me working with Jenga or Bella - he'll mimic whatever I've just taught the other dog to do, hoping I'll reward him as well. He's learned 3 commands this way!

Anyway, never having owned anything but dogs, I can't say much about comparative intelligence...but I will say that I'm endlessly impressed by what my dogs figure out.

Sandy, I agree completely.

I just thought the article would be slightly misleading for someone with limited dog experience.

I don't think even scientists believe they have any kind of understanding on how smart dogs are. Let's face it, they just barely got away from considering dogs animal-shaped bags of nerves. Most pet owners are light years ahead of them.

 Quote: Janice Jarman

Jenni, what you said about Caleb and the tennis ball/stick. That sure does strike a chord with me. I cannot even remember how many times I've spoken to CeeCee or Harley in a conversational tone of voice...no command...and had them do what I suggested. Example, "CeeCee, it sure is chilly in here, why don't you go lay down in your sunbeam?". She looks at me, cocks her head, and then strolls on over to the beam and flops down. "Harley, the bunney went behind the bush by the bird feeder" There goes Harley, straight for that particular bush. And on and on.

So, Janice, you're crazy, too!

I speak to my 2 oldest like this all the time, and it's absolutely impossible that it's all coincidence that they do just what I suggested at that time. People think I'm nuts. I rarely speak to them in simple commands...it's more like "Hey, Caleb, it's really crowded in here and everyone's afraid of you, so could you do me a favor and fuss? Thanks." Sure, he'd have done the same thing if I said "fuss" but I honestly think talking to them instead of barking out orders like a sergeant has a huge influence (positive) on our relationship. Similarly, I can say "Caleb, why don't you go up the ladder and down the slide" or "up the slide and down the ladder". Yes, it's simple word association, but if they were dumb animals, having 4 commands thrown at them in one sentence would stump them.

My Chi will decide between going for a walk with Frisco (Mom's dog) or going to McDonald's. I ask him "Would you rather go for a walk with Frisco or go to McDonald's and get a burger?" He stares at me, shaking, then I say simply "Burger" and wait for a response. If I get none, I say "Frisco" and he'll start this ridiculous shrieking. He usually picks Frisco, but not always. Oh, and don't go to a drive-thru and not get him anything...unless you LIKE pee-filled shoes.

Anyway, I'm so glad there are others who talk to their dogs as if they can understand...because I think they can. I just sat here nodding to myself reading others' posts, esp. Janice, Carol, and Sandy....so familiar.