Secret Language

So the other day I commented that I'm not much of an animal person. Despite that I think i've done a pretty good job with my dog. We got her from a rescue when she was 2 years old (that was a year ago), so she was already house broken and overall you could tell she had some training. But I took it upon myself to teach her a few basic tricks.

Now I have only had minimal interaction with dogs, and really know absolutely nothing about how to train one. But I did take a semester of Psychology in college, and felt that I had a pretty good understanding of operant conditioning and some other learning methods (think Pavlov's dogs). So I decided that I would try and apply that knowledge as best I could... if it worked, great! if not, oh well.

I started out with the "sit" command. This is how I went about teaching it to her:

1. Say the word "sit"
2. Push her backside down so she is forced into the sitting position
3. While she is still sitting (because I'm pushing on her backside) give her a treat and then pet her a lot

I figured that she would soon associate the word "sit" with the action of putting her butt down, and then knowing that she receives a reward makes it all worthwhile in her mind. After only a few days of doing this, she was actually sitting on her own! I was just as proud of her as I was of myself. I know it's not a big deal, plenty of people teach their pets tricks, but I was able to figure out how to do it on my own.

After that I taught her some other basics: lay down, shake, up, and even roll-over (though she only rolls over half way then stops). I tried "stay" and "come here" but I havent quite mastered the technique for those, so it's been less than successful. But on the whole I was very please with our work together. And I began showing off her tricks whenever there was someone around to observe.

Then, one day, someone else told her to sit. And she just looked at them as if they were saying "blah blah blah" (like in the Simpsons episode.) I didnt understand why she wasnt responding to the command. So I went over and told her to sit, and she immediately obeyed. At first I thought that maybe she only responded to me, but then I realized something... The whole time I was teaching her verbal commands, I was also using my hands to communicate the commands. For instance:

1. whenever I say sit, I also hold up my pointer-finger
2. when I say down, I move my hand in a downward motion
3. when I say shake, I hold out my hand to her

I had no idea I was doing those things. But I quickly learned that she's really not listening to the words I'm saying... instead she's watching my hands. So I can actually get her to do these "tricks" without saying a word. Unfortunately, anyone else has to learn my hand signals if they want her to respond to them. I've tried teaching her to listen to the words, but that hasnt been as successful, some days she'll listen, mostly she'll just stare at me. But I kind of like our hand signals, it's like we have our own secret language.