Every Dog Knows More Than You Do

“Every dog knows more than you do.”
–Nez Perce Native American Proverb

While I was doing research for my doctoral dissertation a couple years ago on Human-Canine Communication I came across this Native American Proverb and I thought it was anecdotal to my work with dogs. Not only are dogs my passion but I am also part Native American and I conduct and attend a lot of the ceremonies associated with that level of spirituality. As I sat and thought about that proverb for a long while and came up with the following, which is an excerpt from my dissertation:
Dogs can be proud of the old adage associated with them. The phrase “man’s best friend” tells us about the history of dogs and their basic nature. There is no better compliment or a truer characterization of dogs in general.
The dog’s only aim is to please its owner. The owner is the highlight of the dog’s life. The dog studies the owner, or trainer, and depends on them for its food, water, and shelter. The dog recognizes how the trainer holds their body when they are happy, angry, nervous, or tired. Many believe that a dog can sense our deepest feelings, and will gradually, adopt their owner’s character and personality.
Research has indicated that when a dog senses that their owner is in a bad mood, the dog behaves differently. The typical dog senses their owner’s mood and with ears back, will approach submissively as if to apologize.
Dogs are loyal companions whose lack of understanding is not their fault. Relatively few dogs that get scolded or punished ever know why. Dogs need to be disciplined in a way that enables them to understand what they did wrong. If the dog does not do what it is told chances are that the owner or trainer is at fault.
To give the dog a chance to please it is necessary that the owner and trainer use a system of communication that is simple and clear. Though people possess intelligence, reason, logic, and for the most part wisdom, they speak to their dogs in a confusing and illogical way. The widely used command, “Sit down!” and “Lie down!” are good examples of this. Both commands use two words when only one is necessary.
The dog will often carry out a master’s command but not because the command is stated correctly. The best dog trainers in the world have said that a dog is capable of learning as many as one hundred verbal commands in a lifetime. Many dogs that are considered “intelligent” know more than two hundred verbal commands and more than seventy hand signals. These “wonder dog’s” vocabulary grows to this level quickly and forms a very solid base. With this base, the trainer is able to communicate any action to the dog verbally. New words are added only occasionally and only when needed.
The above excerpt took me on a fascinating two year journey studying how and why we communicate with dogs and their relationships they have with us. The accumulation was a 360-page, highly technical body of work that I am immensely proud of. I have been a professional dog trainer for eighteen years and a dog musher for many more. I have learned a lot from dogs; about myself, about life, about death, about unbridled passion and a reason to dream. Few researchers have been concerned with the rate at which a dog learns and the relationship between humans and canines in regards to communication. This is the purpose of my work in which I have thrown my life’s passion into. I welcome all that read this article to visit my website at www.denverdogworks.com and read my dissertation: Chasing the Dream: A Study of Human-Canine Communication in the Sport of Dog Sledding (2005).

Dr. Robert Forto, PhD, is the training director of Denver Dog Works in Colorado and he specializes in canine aggression. He writes a weekly blog titled The Gangline. If you wish to contact Dr. Forto he can be reached at 303-752-2818.