Do dogs understand words or are they just reacting to tone of voice?

Question

My dog reacts to at least 75 words, but does she really have a picture in her head of the object the word stands for?

Answer 1

Look up Pavlov and his dog experiment. Dogs are incapable of learning the meaning of a word. However, they can learn to associate the sounds of certain words, which will in turn, illicit a CONDITIONED RESPONSE. This is NOT the comprehension of words.

For example: When my dog heard me say "Want to go outside?" he would immediately run for the door. Not because he understood the words, but because he associated the phonetics and equated that with being allowed to go out. They are incapable of truly comprehending language as we know it.

Answer 2

Both.
Dogs understand words AND they will also react to tone of voice.
A poodle has a 300 word vocabulary. The 300 words can be made up of words in different languages (example: 150 American English words, 75 Spanish words, 50 French words and 25 German words).
When I tell my dog, "Door Watch" she runs to the door to watch for the arrival of someone I'm expecting soon. When it's time for me to stop what I'm doing and approach the door, she barks.

Answer 3

They understand words in so much as the sounds that make up the word..
You can use the word "bop" for the dog to sit and it will but be totally confused if you say "sit"
People use different commands to, say, allow their dog to eat, and it doesnt matter what other phrases are used, they will only react to the correst phrase.
The command is remembered by tone and sounds.

For the dog that got into the rubbish, knew it had dont wrong, so it didnt matter what was said to it or in what tone, It had already learnt it was wrong. Just handnt learnt yet not to do it.

Answer 4

Dogs definatly have an understanding of what certain words they have been trained with mean. My dog knows the difference between telling her to get her bone and ball and she will get the correct one. She knows common commands like sit and shake and all that and performs them on command. She also knows what let's go to bed means and will head straight for the bed. She has recently learned what daycare means too because I would take her to a friends house to run around outside all day while I was working and she gets all excited by the mention of the word daycare because it means she gets to go play. So yes they definatley know what certain words mean through repetition of the same outcome.

Answer 5

Yes, dogs understand words

Answer 6

I believe so, although some would maybe disagree. i have seen dogs respond to the same command in different languages, merely because they knew the words that were being spoken. I THINK that's how the seeing eye dogs are trained, also...by learning the words and their meaning

Steve

Answer 7

I pondered this question too, so here is what I did to test it out. One of our dogs likes to get into the garbage. IAfter a few times of saying "Naughty girl!" in a mean tone, I said it in a nice tone. She still acted as if she was still in trouble, so they have a bit of an understanding of what we say to them.

Answer 8

Deffinately, my little dog understands certain commands that go with some activity such as when she tries to get some ones attention, tell her to stop--she connects "stop" with don't do it no matter tone of voice..."time to go" she goes and gets her leash...shes ready for her walk.

Answer 9

yes some dogs actually really understand words.

Answer 10

my dog knows what I say. He can be doing whatever and I will say You r a pretty boy" and he'll give me a kiss or Brownie's outside (neighbor's dog). He'll run to the door.. I can say "bathroom" and he'll get up because he knows I have to go...dogs are very smart.