Scientists told how to talk with dogs

Dogs are special creatures. All dog owners know this. Most of them feel like a dog understands their every word and their actions. Studies from the last 20 years show that dogs can understand human intercourse better than any other animals. A new study confirms that if you want to train your puppy, you must talk to him in a certain way in order to maximize the chance that he will understand you.

There is already quite a lot of evidence that we communicate with dogs differently than with other people. When we talk to dogs, we use "speech addressed to dogs." This means that we change the structure of sentences, shorten them and simplify them. We also usually speak higher notes. We use the same methods if we are not sure that we are understood, or when talking to babies.

A new study shows that when talking with puppies we raise our voice even more, and that this tactic really helps animals with concentration. A study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B showed that talking to puppies with “speech to dogs” helps them respond better and increases their attention to the human instructor.
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To verify the researchers used experiments with so-called. "Play". They recorded people repeating the phrase: “Hi! Hi handsome! Who is a good boy? Go here! Good boy! Yes, come here, my sweetie! What a good boy! ”Every time a speaker looked at photos of puppies, adult dogs, old dogs, or didn’t look at the photo at all. Analysis of the records showed that the volunteers did change the style of speech depending on the dog.

The researchers then replayed the recordings to several puppies and adult dogs, and recorded their responsive behavior. It was found that the puppies were more responsive to the records made when the subjects looked at the images of dogs (speech addressed to dogs).

The researchers found no similar effect in adult dogs. But other studies that recorded the reaction of dogs to the human voice with live interaction indicated that speech “addressed to dogs” might be useful for communicating with dogs of any age.

It has also been proven (what most dog owners will tell you) that you can communicate with dogs with gestures. From puppyhood, dogs react to people's gestures, such as pointing, in a different way from others. The test is very simple. Place two identical cups covering two pieces of food in front of your dog, make sure that she does not see the food and does not know what is under the cups. Now point to one of the two cups, maintaining eye contact with the dog. She will follow your gesture to the cup you gave her, and study it, expecting to find something under it.

The dog understands that your actions mean trying to communicate. This is surprising, because even the closest relatives of people, chimpanzees, do not understand that in such a situation people tell them their intention. The wolves, the closest relatives of the dogs, do not understand this, even if they were raised like dogs, near people.



Because of this, the idea emerged that the skills and behavior of dogs from this area is an adaptation to the human environment. Living together with people for 30,000 years has led to the fact that as a result of evolution, dogs have communication skills comparable to those of children.

But still, there is a difference between how dogs and children understand our communication with them. It is believed that dogs, unlike children, consider the gesture of pointing as a form of lax team that tells them where to go, and not just as a transfer of information. When you point out something to a child, they think that you inform them about something.

The ability of dogs to recognize spatial indications would be an ideal adaptation for living with humans. For example, for thousands of years, dogs were used as a social tool to help with grazing and hunting, when they needed to be controlled from a distance using gestures. Recent studies confirm the idea that dogs not only developed the ability to recognize gestures, but also developed a special sensitivity to the human voice, helping them to understand whether they need to react to what was said.