Are your pets bilingual?
 

A question prompted by my son phoning from the UK to ask what the words were we say to our dog (always have spoken to animals in Spanish cos my mum always did from when I was little!!)
... so if you're in a Brit/Spanish household, which language do you use?
And if your animals are only ever spoken to in English, how do they react if a Spanish friend speaks to them in Spanish? (guess that's probably more about tone of voice than content, though!)

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

My dog appears to be bi-lingual, Spanish / English, however my guess is that intonation plays a big part.

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

Intonation is the most important part, you can use any word to make your dog sit, as long as you use the intonation you would use for 'sit', so you could say 'stand' but use the 'sit' intonaion and the dog will sit.

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

I would tend to agree about intonation, said it in my op, but when my son or daughter open the front door and tell the dog 'out' (and most people use the same kind of intonation for that message) she ignores them. I say 'fuera' & she's out straight away. :confused:

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

Our dog is Spanish but ingores everything you tell him in any language:rofl::rofl:

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

Ours are multi lingual, understand anything you like as long as there is a sausage in it for them. :rofl:
Actually I think they read minds, Spanish, English, French, German, Austrian, Swiss, no problems at all. :thumbup:

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

Have a biscuit in your hand and ours will follow you thru hell.

They understand food in any language.

If you start counting in German, when you reach 4 he'll start dripping, because it sounds like beer.

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

This is why ours is so disabidient , he`s not greedy so we cant bribe him;)

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

When you come to the number 6 in German, I hope your dogs are not of the same sex!

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

My dog is spanish and I use a mix of languages for her, I was told dogs here were trained in english as the sounds are shorter. I think she understands movement and hand signals better than voice.

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

Silly question, I mean

Who would teach a Spanish dog English?
Might be a business opportunity here though:p

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

Spaniards do, although only a few words such as "Sit" and "Stay"

As others have said, dogs rely on intonation which are clearly different in "Sit" and "Stay" but not so much in the Spanish equivalents "Siéntate" and "Quédate" (for example)

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

Much the same with mine as long as theres something in it for him.
Walk,food,scraps etc. no problem in three languages, however when it comes to direct orders he appears to be slightly hard of hearing.

I do very much get the impression he's a mind reader also, as he so often anticipates my activities and actions, even when I vary both the routine and timing.

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

Like you say, it's because dogs do better with simple single or double syllable commands. I was told that's why Italian police dogs are trained in German.

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

:rofl:a good square kick up the ass, does away with the language problem, as dogs of all nationalities understand it...:rofl::rofl::rofl:

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

weeellll, they are, tho both castrated. The trouble is, the older one sees mounting the other one as a way of establishing dominance.

After dinner he has his beer, and after the beer, lurve, unless the younger dog remembers to sit down.

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

Our 3 dogs are all bilingual, they are all from the beginning pure Spanish dogs and understand of course Spanish. Sometimes it seems that they understand it better than me. But they had no problems to learn Swedish (we speak Swedish at home). I have not yet tried to learn them any other language, but we had a Finnish visitor who had some sausages whit here - and they had no problem to communicate at all.:eek:

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

My dogs understand Spanish mostly, that's what they were trained with before I came along! In fact the first Spanish words I learnt were dog commands!

They understand baja and quieta alli (spelt right?).

They swap fairly well between sit and siéntate, especially at dinner times (they know the drill, I won't give them dinner otherwise). They know vamos and ben aqui, but often I say "come on" and they do well with that too. Actually it works better if I use all three sometimes, alternating between them

Early on I'd tell them "callate", which they were used to but they didn't listen to me when I said that. One day I just said "shutup" and they understood! I think because shutup is from my native language and callate isn't, it can "embody the energy" better.

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

so lests get this straight.your dogs understand anything in any lingo.dosnt it tell you something about pet owners.Its a bit like the copper who stopped me the other night.My dog tells me your on drugs he said.i replyed on drugs.me on drugs.your the one with the talking dog :rofl:

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

Our two understand English, Spanish German and Italian with no problems. All intonation for us... with a mix of hand signals too. The older one does get more excited about Spanish though.

I've spoken English to Spanish dogs I've come across when out hiking and they're cool with it.

Elle xx

PS: But as other have said... doesn't mean they'll always do as they're told!

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

you see my point.pet owners are on totaly different planet.:huh:

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

Yep, our dog barked in Irish on St-Patrick's Day last Thursday. We brought him to Spain last year and he had no difficulty in communication with Spanish bitches. He go pretty amorous with a dog from England also. I am reliably informed that the English dog was not bilingual.

I hope the English (sorry England) rugby team is not "bilingual" today against us.

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

Maybe, but not quite barking mad. ;)

Re: Are your pets bilingual?
 

bilingual my bum.my mate had a english dog who couldnt even understand english.evey time they went to peoples houses you would hear him shouting at the dog.....You drity bastard. I said Sit:rofl: