Looking Back and Looking Forward 2010 & 2011

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Not Afraid

Dogs understand words. Especially if they are words such as "hungry", "treat", "bully stick", "dinner", "breakfast".....well, you get the picture.

Sure, dogs understand words. Wouldn't contest that (I think the record is something like 150).

They don't, however, understand what you're saying. And they don't understand the words unless you've said it to them many times and very carefully tied it to a specific real world stimulus. If you give the dog a treat every time you fart it will understand that word just as well.

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by Alex

And they don't understand the words unless you've said it to them many times and very carefully tied it to a specific real world stimulus.

The same could be said for some Humans.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by JWBear

The same could be said for some Humans.

Which is what prompted this entire sidebar.

[Morrigoon]

Originally Posted by Alex

And they don't understand the words unless you've said it to them many times and very carefully tied it to a specific real world stimulus.

Yep, pretty much how language is acquired. Although dogs are at a disadvantage to their human counterparts in that they lack the physical capability of mimicking the sounds they hear to test which ones will have the same effect. So yay dogs for managing to learn anyway.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

Yep, pretty much how language is acquired.

Not really. Vocabulary and language are two different things. The former is simply a catalog of labels, the latter a system of using those labels. Dogs can acquire the former, not so much on the latter.