Like my sweet, old, great uncle likes to exclaim “she understands huh!”, as my dog run laps around my parents yard before returning to my side after telling her she looks foolish. He’s right! Although my dog likes to do what she wants, she does not like looking foolish, and so all I have to do is call her on it.

Dogs can understand a lot more than you think! Although your pup can become frustrated when you speak to them in complete sentences, it doesn’t mean you should stop talking to your pups all together! Like anyone learning a new language for the first time, as long as you’re not bombarding them with unnecessary repetition, or speaking to them a mile a minute reversing a whole 5 page monologue, they can pick up our language through immersion. Naming as many things in one or two words can be very beneficial to your communication with your pet.

Name everything your dog encounters. This is extremely important for development in your dog, and will make other training that much easier. Just like I mentioned in my previous post about exposing your dog to as many things as possible (in post titled: I just got my new puppy! When should I start training?) naming the things you are exposing them to is equally as beneficial to your training.

Keep it simple, but label everything you can, the good the bad and the scary. Try to keep things as consistent as possible if they are similar enough, and it will help as a bridge for other things your dog may experience. For example don't say "that is a 16 wheeler cargo truck", instead just say, "it's a truck". Yes, that may seem like an extreme comparison, but you would be surprised. Labeling things as simply as possible will make the transition to other scary sounds, places, people or things that much more comforting. When you label something and reinforce the name of an object, place or person, it becomes less of an unknown, scary thing. This will boost their confidence whenever they are around the subject matter, as soon as you name it a familiar name.