I had two friends visiting over the week. After watching Tuck respond
appropriately to conversations in a normal conversational tone of voice, by
the end of the week it was hilarious when they started spelling things.

I asked why they were spelling? And their reply was, the DOG was listening.
He listens to every word said and they truly believed he understood
everthing. I had to laugh.

diddy wrote:
I had two friends visiting over the week. After watching Tuck respond
appropriately to conversations in a normal conversational tone of voice, by
the end of the week it was hilarious when they started spelling things.

I asked why they were spelling? And their reply was, the DOG was listening.
He listens to every word said and they truly believed he understood
everthing. I had to laugh.

I wouldn't put Oppie in the same league as Tuck, but he does
respond to three words when they are embedded in sentences -
hungry, walk, and go. We've tested this numerous times. His hit
rate is about 80%, so we do spell these words or say "the H word"
etc. when we don't want to get him excited for naught.

FurPaw

--
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched,
every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense
a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and are not clothed."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

To reply, unleash the dog.

Similar (in that it involved a dogless friend) --

After I said that my dog had been on a diet to loose some excess weight, my
friend commented that diets don't work longterm -- you have to change your
eating habits. I pointed out to her that *I* controlled the dog's eating
habits. :-)

Gina in Va

diddy wrote:
I had two friends visiting over the week. After watching Tuck respond
appropriately to conversations in a normal conversational tone of voice, by
the end of the week it was hilarious when they started spelling things.

I asked why they were spelling? And their reply was, the DOG was listening.
He listens to every word said and they truly believed he understood
everthing. I had to laugh.

"diddy" none wrote in message
. ..
I had two friends visiting over the week. After watching Tuck respond
appropriately to conversations in a normal conversational tone of voice,
by
the end of the week it was hilarious when they started spelling things.

I asked why they were spelling? And their reply was, the DOG was
listening.
He listens to every word said and they truly believed he understood
everthing. I had to laugh.

Poor Tuck, they were trying to leave him out!!

montana wildhack wrote:

I want to know what dogs can't understand what C-A-R spells.

Hey, you're visible again!

Anyway, Harriet does not know what car or c-a-r mean. i don't think
I've ever used the word in any way that would be important to her.
Instead, I just ask her if she wants to go with me.

--
Shelly
http://www.cat-sidh.net (the Mother Ship)
http://esther.cat-sidh.net (Letters to Esther)

FurPaw wrote:
I wouldn't put Oppie in the same league as Tuck, but he does
respond to three words when they are embedded in sentences -
hungry, walk, and go. We've tested this numerous times. His hit
rate is about 80%, so we do spell these words or say "the H word"
etc. when we don't want to get him excited for naught.

"Perambulate" for "walk", "external" or "exterior" for "out", etc.

If nothing else, it amuses me and builds the dogs' vocabulary.

(I had to be careful about using the general "do you wanna" phrase around
Sam. His answer was always an unqualified and enthusiastic "YES!", no
matter how the phrase ended. "Do you wanna go to the vet?" got the same
response as "Do you wanna cookie?")

"BethInAK" spoke these words of wisdom in
:


"diddy" none wrote in message
. ..
I had two friends visiting over the week. After watching Tuck respond
appropriately to conversations in a normal conversational tone of
voice,
by
the end of the week it was hilarious when they started spelling things.

I asked why they were spelling? And their reply was, the DOG was
listening.
He listens to every word said and they truly believed he understood
everthing. I had to laugh.

Poor Tuck, they were trying to leave him out!!




No, they were playing games with him, and they just wanted to exclude him
from the answers. He used his nose to seek that answer, so all the spanish
or spelling they managed was no good. But one of them was complaining of
being cold because the air conditioner was too cold, and he got up and got
them a blanket, not knowing this was a recently trained trick of his, and
one sneezed, and he got up and got them a kleenex box. BOTH people
triggered key words that he had been trained to do, and they both happened
to hit them, and were amazed when he got up and acted appropriately.

I did not claim this was a mystery, I was simply amused that they started
spelling, and speaking spanish around him because they REALLY believed he
was listening. Well he WAS listening, or he wouldn;t have reacted
appropriately. But they believed he understood EVERYTHING.

They took some videos of him, convinced they are going to hit it rich on
America's funniest Home Videos.

He has a vast repetiore of games, and he entertained them for hours and
hours. But they were trying to figure out how to outwit him.. Thus his
exclusion.

FurPaw wrote in
:

I wouldn't put Oppie in the same league as Tuck, but he does
respond to three words when they are embedded in sentences -
hungry, walk, and go. We've tested this numerous times. His hit
rate is about 80%, so we do spell these words or say "the H word"
etc. when we don't want to get him excited for naught.


When my mother was young, she had a dog that learned how to spell "Post
Office" so you're probably just going to make him that much smarter!

--
Catherine
& Zoe the cockerchow
& Queenie the black gold retriever
& Max the pomeranian
& Rosalie the calico cat

We do a lot of spelling and have for years. The problem comes when the
dogs learn how to spell.

We also gave the dogs nicknames so we wouldn't use their names or regular
nicknames, and they learned those, too.

The spelling game also leads to good tricks.

I want to know what dogs can't understand what C-A-R spells.


maui and cali know car but not C-A-R

the dog i had growing up knew l-e-a-s-h, w-a-l-k and b-y-b-y (left out the
E's for simplicity)

(I had to be careful about using the general "do you wanna" phrase around
Sam. His answer was always an unqualified and enthusiastic "YES!", no
matter how the phrase ended. "Do you wanna go to the vet?" got the same
response as "Do you wanna cookie?")


cali does the same thing. no matter what I am asking, if it starts that
way, she's excited.