My Bilingual Dogs

[Mexivoof]

I was walking my two dogs yesterday afternoon when I saw trouble ahead. Cooper was out, and while a very friendly dog, he is NEVER on a leash. ( A pet-peeve of mine since we live in the city and are just off of a very busy street.) So he came running over to meet my two (again) and luckily Cooper's mom is always outside when he is. I started talking loudly to Cooper and his owner comes over to try to get him under control.
Long story short (guess it's already too late for that) After the ritual greeting had gone on for long enough I was trying to encourage mine to move along. "Come on boys" "lets go guys" didn't work so I said "Vamos perros" and they obeyed instantly

[Sol]

Originally Posted by Mexivoof

I was walking my two dogs yesterday afternoon when I saw trouble ahead. Cooper was out, and while a very friendly dog, he is NEVER on a leash. ( A pet-peeve of mine since we live in the city and are just off of a very busy street.) So he came running over to meet my two (again) and luckily Cooper's mom is always outside when he is. I started talking loudly to Cooper and his owner comes over to try to get him under control.
Long story short (guess it's already too late for that) After the ritual greeting had gone on for long enough I was trying to encourage mine to move along. "Come on boys" "lets go guys" didn't work so I said "Vamos perros" and they obeyed instantly

I heard on the radio that some dogs will hear a command and wait to make up their mind whether or not they are going to obey it. Pretty smart! Perhaps because your doggies did not understand what you were saying to them, but the intonation of your command indicated that they need to obey, they felt compelled to do so. All four of our dogs are bilingual and when spoken to in English, sometimes they will do some decision making whether or not it is worth it to them to listen. That is when I rattle off in Spanish to them and they haul butt. My mom used to speak in Spanish to them all of the time because that was her primary language. They always obeyed her, but once again, I believe it was the intonation of her commands. Besides that, she was always giving them human food.

[Ginger]

my dog knows two languages....english, and sign language!

(he does all his tricks/commands either by words or by hand signals)