Directional Commands?

Orson understands Left/Right and Back up. I use left/right for which side of me I need him to walk depending on where we are/what we are doing. He wouldn't turn left/right if I told him to. When I say "left" he goes to that side of me, same if I say "right"

Back up, well I made him do that for obvious reasons, LOL........crowding the door, butting in to 'help' get his food ready, etc. If I say Back up....he takes about 3-4 steps backward and sits, LOL

Chloe knows "no, the other way". This is used if she is on leash (normally a flexi) and starts to go around an object one way and I go the other. I can get her to stop, backtrack, and go around the proper way without me having to do anything.

If she happens to get tangled up around something on her tether, I can tell her the same thing. "Come this way *hand motion*" and she'll go the way I tell her to to get untangled.

She also knows "Watch it!" which means if she is tethered (or running on a flexi) she is about ready to clothes line herself and needs to stop running right now. And "get BACK" which essentially means to back up a few steps and stop crowding me. "Move" means to get up off your butt and get out of my way or you are going to get stepped on.

She also knows "Let's turn around!" which I taught outside of a formal heel first, but then decided it really helped her (and Rose, and Blackie) all know what it was that I was doing when I first started teaching a 180. I say that when we're at the halfway point on our walks and we're going to turn around and head back towards home. She immediately circles and heads back the other way.

Blackie knew "Let's go over" as the cue for him to go into the grass off of the road. We had to cue him because otherwise he would mark on EVERYTHING and it was slow going on our walks, but it was also useful to get him off the road if a car was coming or some such. He and Rose also knew that "Go around back" meant for them to head to the back door of the house and wait for me.

No, I've never really taught Teagan direction signals, but i've never really had to. She is pretty intune to what I want, even if I don't say anyhing. I like to think she reads my mind ha ha, but she is probably just really good with reading my body language.

It is a good thing to teach though. I should try and pair directions with a command and see is she picks it up.

Lyric did. "Go left" "Go right" "back up" and he learned "turn around" also. But not these dogs. I just haven't spent the time with those kinds of things on the Chi's that I did on Lyric.

A little off topic but it has to do with directions, do your dogs understand what you mean when you point at something? My cats just look at my finger but Sam looks where I'm pointing. I wouldn't have thought too much about it but I saw some sort of documentary in class that claimed that only humans had the capacity to comprehend the notion of pointing. I've never tried with other dogs, but when I was volunteering at the agility regionals/nationals there were some that went where their owners pointed. I was talking with some other dog people and they all told me their dogs never understood pointing, despite trying to teach them to. Case by case thing or?

Absolutely. It's one of the things that sets domestic dogs apart from any other animal....it's one of the marks of their uncanny understanding of human beings...something that came in the "package" of dogs' and humans' probable convergent evolution. They think we influenced each other's evolutionary development. Of course, there are likely some that may not get it. But as an over all phenomenon, yes....dogs understand what we mean when we point. Wolves don't. Chimpanzees don't. Some other animals understand better an ends to means cognition. But dogs specialize in human cues of a social nature. They had to in order to adapt to their niche. All animals must adapt to their own niche.

http://www.moderndogmagazine.com/articles/how-dogs-read-human-body-language/278

Rosey will go where I point, or she'll look for dropped food where I'm pointing if I point at the ground.

^ What she said. LOL

All of my dogs understand pointing, as do the other dogs I know.

Thank you! That makes a ton of sense, and likely why that was skipped in the documentary I was watching. They tried looking at our closest relatives but not to the ones that seem to get us the best. Very neat.

I can point in any direction and tell Lacey "go" and she goes in that direction. I never taught her that, she just understood what I am asking.

Nora, not so much lol.

Classic knows left (easy) and right (this way) from when I bike with him... It's no fun biking with a great dane that doesn't know to slow down to make a left hand turn or that he needs to speed up for a right hand turn.

Zuma is working on directionals for agility, but that's all they'll be used for.

I can point and say 'go there' or 'get on that' and they will. I can also say 'this way' and they'll change directions.

I do get a lot of people that are impressed that I can point a direction and my dogs will go there. I thought that was very basic. lol

They don't need to be taught. It's just inherent in their make-up. Even very, very young puppies, like 4 weeks old...even when they were raised out in a barn with very little human contact (experiment) still will follow with their eyes humans pointing to something. Even not pointing, but nodding in the direction. Try nodding with your head and looking some time toward a piece of dropped food that the dog didn't see you drop. They'll prefer to beg for food from a person whose eyes they can see as opposed to someone with a blind fold on. A dog that retrieves will usually bring the ball back to the front side of a person, not tend to drop it behind them. Not always. (I experimented with this) When the experimenters brought these tiny puppies that were raised out in the barn with little human contact into the house, the puppies would look at the counter tops where food was and then look at the human, then back to the food and back to the human again, showing that they just knew that food would likely be available on account of humans. Dogs are really phenomenal, aren't they.

For those on netflix, National geographic has a really great documentary called "The science of dogs" on instant
has some really interesting experiments that people do regarding their relationship with us (including pointing and how they look back at us for help)

http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/National_Geographic_Science_of_Dogs/70144621?trkid=5791625

Yes, there were some experiments done where a locked box was presented and it had food in it. A wolf was put before the box to see how he'd go about opening it. He tried and tried, not giving up for a long time, never looking at the human. He finally figured it out and got into the box. (as I recall reading...it's been a while since I read this) Then a dog was put to the test. He tried once or twice to open the box, gave up and then stopped and looked toward the human, then back at the box, then back at the human, indicating that the dog depends on the human to help him with his needs.

Chimps were better at pulling a string that had food tied to it out of an area blocked by bars, like a cage...to get the food. Dogs fail at this type of thing. Dogs are superior in solving puzzles of a social nature...that have to do with humans especially. But other animals are often better at solving puzzles that are complicated, but have nothing to do with a human. Chimpanzees will often will do something like lift up an angled board that is partially covering another board, as though something is hiding underneath it. They recognize this possibility. But most dogs rather fail at this type of cognition (where scent isn't involved)...this means to an ends thing when compared to some other animals.

I will say over, stop, and bread and butter which is funny because they know exactly what I mean. We never have a pole or anything in between us. Also foot up, in case a leash has gotten under a foot while sniffing. With 4 on a leash it's hard to keep track of every leash and all those feet. THey all know what I mean. it's good enough for us. I don't see anything wrong with left or right tho if the dog understands it and it works for you.