Your dog may understand what you’re saying but choose not to act.”
I don’t argue with people who have the knowledge to investigate and test such things but I think the above is one of the most sensible things they said.
Dogs do have a will, and a sense of priority, priority to them that is. Also I don’t believe dogs understand nouns as such, they learn sounds and connections.
Jules, my Beauceron proves this. He is extremely obedient, if it suits him, in other words he chooses to obey or ignore. Food is very high on a dog’s priority, Jules is no different, but, even when a bowl of food is put 2 feet in front of him he will sit and wait for the command to eat. The command is ‘bon appetit’ and he won’t move till he hears it, if he can see my face and read when I am about to say the words he will very occasionally start to jump the gun, but will sit back down if I bark very sharply at him ‘ack’ or ‘attam’ (the way many people round here pronounce ‘attend’). Even when under great strain today, when he knows that another dog, Shanna, is in the room and doesn’t know that I am holding her collar, he will still sit and wait. He trusts me enough to know that I will never ever deny him once in this position. That was yesterday, the first common meal day, today, holding Shanna in one hand and her pre-prepared bowl in the other, I advanced from behind him to her feeding station, only a metre away from him. He trembled but did not move. I gave him the signal to eat at the same moment as I told Shanna to sit, and simultaneously put her bowl down and gave her the same command. Of course she would not have waited if I wasn’t holding her but I will be disappointed if I have to hold her a week from now. One final test I have done with Jules in the past is to walk behind him out of his sight and even into another room before shouting the command, and still he waited.
But, but, there is a reason why he, alone amongst all the dogs I have ever owned, will never be off the lead outside of the garden. His recall is excellent, to voice or whistle, if it suits him. The scents on the ground, and his nose is always down there, especially away from the familiar, and there is often not a flicker of a sign that he has heard me, and I know he has excellent hearing, trump my recall. Even more demoralising is on the occasions when I am more interesting than some day old smell and he turns on an instant at the call to race back towards me in a most satifactory fashion, he quite often, without even stopping, swerves at right angles to the track to race off after an odeur that has caught his attention. Without the long line, he can easily follow that scent for several kms, and he has done so 3 times now when my guard or over confidence has let me down and I have lost hold of the line.
Sounds, choices and priorities are what governs dogs’ behaviour. And they are all different to a degree. I can’t wait to test Shanna’s. At the moment she is promising, especially as I know she loves splashing about in water, and came back from an inticing river twice to day when I called her. 