Dog training: how many words can a dog learn?

I was driving home from a meeting the other night listening to “Nights with Alice Cooper.”

It’s a good radio show and I always like his weird facts and commentary. Good things like:

Kentucky Fried Chicken’s slogan, Finger Licking Good, translates to “Eat your fingers” in Chinese.

Thinking about the strange facts about Alice Cooper got me thinking. You see, every day I get a ton of questions via email, Twitter, and Facebook.

Some of the common ones are:

Do Pit Bull Jaws Really Lock When They Bite?

Does a Doberman’s brain enlarge as it ages and make it aggressive?

Is it true that a dog that wags its tail won’t bite you?

So, in the spirit of Alice Cooper, I’m going to give you the weird facts about Eric Letendre’s dog:

1. President Lyndon Johnson had two beagles named He and Ella. I once had a client who had two chocolate labs named “Hershey” and “Squirts.”

2. A dog’s mouth exerts 150-200 pounds of pressure per square inch and some dogs exert up to 450 pounds per square inch – Pit Bull’s jaws DO NOT lock, but with that much pressure, he won’t be able to open his mouth. I’ve seen this in many breeds, once they closed their jaws they couldn’t open them.

3. Basset Hounds can’t swim. I know this is true. A client of mine had to jump out of his canoe to save the basset hound from him. His basset fluttered, fell out of the canoe, and sank like a stone. (I don’t fully buy this because if you’ve ever seen the movie “Smokey And The Bandit” there’s a scene with Fred the Basset Hound swimming in a pond.)

4. Dogs have no sense of “time.” I dont believe it. Feed your dog every day at 4:00 pm for three months. At the end of the third month, observe what your dog does when no food is given to him at that time.

5. 70% of people sign their pet’s name on greeting and holiday cards. Do you do this?

6. 58% put pets in family and vacation portraits. I do this.

7. Dogs can only learn about 20 words – WRONG! Dogs can learn a lot more than 20 words.

Think about it, if you teach your dog only the basic commands: sit, crouch, stop, stay, come, wait, go, heel – 8 words.

Then teach some simple tricks: shake, roll over, sit up, talk, crawl, wave, play dead, high five, and circle: 9 words.

17 so far 17 words. Then if you add some behaviors that are very easy to teach, like go to your box, back off, get to work, you easily get to 20 words.

In Stanley Coren’s book, “The Intelligence of Dogs,” he states, “Sure, most dogs understand the basics: ‘fetch,’ ‘sit,’ and ‘stay.’ But if you have the motivation and With patience, you can probably teach your dog even more than 100 words.”

Mr Coren adds: “That trained dogs on average know around 160 words. Some dogs even display a vocabulary as large as that of a small human child.”

So don’t think your dog is limited. You can teach your dog loads of words that will impress your friends and family.